Charged fence kills adult elephant in Athagarh

CUTTACK: A tusker was electrocuted to death after it came in contact with electricity line passing through GI wires illegally fenced around a sugarcane field at a village under Khuntuni range of Athagarh forest division on Saturday.The fresh case of electrocution has belied claims that elephant movement is studiedly monitored.

The adult tusker was aged between 30 and 40 years. Its trunk bore a deep cut, apparently impact of the tusker coming in contact with live electricity. The charged peripheral fencing was around a sugarcane field near Kaduanuagan of Gobara gram panchayat of Athagarh.

The carcass was detected within 30 minutes of the electrocution. While both the tusks have been seized, Fagu Sahu, owner of the sugarcane field, has been taken into custody, informed Athagarh divisional forest officer JD Pati.Forest officials claimed they had tracked the tusker inside Sankhapoi jungle adjacent to Dhenkanal border till 6 am.

Due to unavailability of food in the forest, the tusker apparently had come out of the jungle and reached the sugarcane field at about 8.30 am where it fell to the charged GI wire fence by the farmer to protect his sugarcane field.

Though the jumbo managed to get out after coming in contact with the killer GI wire, it struggled and collapsed in the paddy field adjacent to the sugarcane farm and succumbed. Local eyewitnesses said the tusker apparently was trying to go back into jungle but failed.

Locals blamed negligence on the part of forest department for electrocution of the tusker. “If movement of elephants was being tracked, how did this one escape their notice,” said a local.Khuntuni forest range officer Nilamadhab Sahu is on leave, several field staffs are not performing their duties properly in five sections resulting in man-elephant conflict, locals alleged.