7 Sep 2020




A 15-year-old female elephant was found lying sick four kilometers inside the forests in Boluvampatti range in the Coimbatore forest division in Tamil Nadu on August 8. It’s tough skin sticking to its bones, the extremely thin young jumbo refused to eat and could not be put back on its feet despite two days of continuous veterinary care and treatment. It died two days later. Sixty-four elephants have died mysteriously in the forests of Tamil Nadu in the last seven months. Of these 17 died in Coimbatore forest division. Before their deaths, many of them had displayed disorientation and restless movement before they lay down, never to be revived. Eight of the 17 deaths occurred within a single forest beat – Pethikuttai in Sirumugai range.

As causes of the deaths remain unclear, Tamil Nadu Forest Department constituted an expert committee to study the larger conservation challenges concerning elephants and to recommend actions for minimising unnatural deaths and man-animal conflicts.

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