Raipur: Chhattisgarh which witnessed, death of 157 wild elephants from 2001- June 2020 has witnessed death of one more baby elephant in the forest circles of Dharamjaigarh of Raigarh district.
"On the information from villagers, the forest department team has recovered a body of an elephant calf in the forest circles of Dharamjaigarh lying in mysterious condition, close to Chhapra Dhand village," said the forest officials on Tuesday.
The body has been recovered and sent for an autopsy, final comment on the death can be made only after the postmortem report gets tabled, the forest official added.
However, despite claims of providing safe passage and creation of special elephant reserve for the wild elephants, the man-elephant conflict has been not going down in Chhattisgarh.
State Government data reflects between 2013-18, around 250 people have lost their lives in man-elephant conflict. Meanwhile, the state also holds a record of death of 100 elephants in the period. "Man-Elephant conflict continuously increased, and people are upset," forest activist from Surguja region of Chhattisgarh Gangabhai said.
Meanwhile, environmental activist Alok Shukla said, the government has provided permission of mining in no-go forest areas, then such incidents are obvious. On the increasing number of poaching and unnatural deaths of wild animals Senior Journalist Alok Putul mentioned in his post, last week hunters killed bison in Achankamar tiger reserve, an officer claimed it was natural death. After that, poachers killed the bear by electrocution, the additional-director ranking officer of forest mentioned that no such bear was killed. Then, hunters killed four deer, alertness of junior officers led to the arrest of the poachers, poachers claimed, they killed Bison. #JungleRaajChhattisgarh, Putul mentioned. In addition, a government press release issued on Tuesday said it arrested four poachers on March 28, 2021 along with 25 kgs meat of Cheetal, and weapons used in crime.
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