Skeletal remains of elephant found in forest near Coimbatore

COIMBATORE: The skeletal remains of a male elephant were found scattered near a stream at Rathapparai in Devarayapuram beat of Boluvampatti block-III reserve forest on Monday evening.
This was the 11th elephant death reported from the Coimbatore forest division since January.
The field staff from Boluvampatti forest range in Coimbatore forest division were patrolling in Rathapparai area around 4 pm on Monday. They found the skeletal remains of a wild elephant scattered in the locality. The skull of the elephant was found with two tusks and the officials confirmed that there was no poaching happening in the locality.
A Sukumar, forest veterinary officer, examined the skeletal remains in the presence of assistant conservator of forests (ACF) Dineshkumar, Boluvampatti range officer Suseendranath and representatives of the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) on Tuesday.
Sukumar said the elephant was aged between five and six years, and it might have died three to four months ago. Sukumar said that he was not able to ascertain the cause of the death of the elephant as the carcass was eaten by the scavengers.
A juvenile male elephant was found dead in Manar beat of Karamadai forest range on Monday morning.
The juvenile male elephant, aged about three years old, was found dead on a riverbed in Melur slope reserve forest in Manar beat of Karamadai forest range. Forest veterinary officer A Sukumar conducted a postmortem.
He said that the calf did not have any external injuries and it might have died due to acute microbial infectious diseases. It died at least three days ago. The small intestine and stomach of the calf was empty. The large intestines contained digested feed, and the rectum contained many boluses of dung.
“Bone marrow samples were collected from the thigh bone of the juvenile. The samples will be sent to the Indian Veterinary Research Institute at Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh to check the presence of herpes virus infection. The skin and bone samples were collected for the DNA profiling analysis,” said Sukumar.
The carcass was partially decomposed, and it was cremated in the locality in the evening.