Bear, elephant found dead in Tamil Nadu’s Mudumalai Tiger Reserve, probe on

Chennai: In two separate incidents on Tuesday (August 10), an adult sloth bear and a female sub-adult elephant were found dead at different locations in the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve in Tamil Nadu.

According to the Deputy Director of Mudumalai Tiger Reserve, Buffer Zone, L C S Srikanth, it was around 6:30 am that the bear was found dead near a piece of land that was under cultivation. Later, around 11 am, the carcass of the female elephant was found by forest department field staff.

He added that post-mortems would be performed in both cases to ascertain the cause of death.

The carcass of the sloth bear was found near the fence of a ‘Patta’ land (a piece of land granted by the government to an approved cultivator) near the Vazhaithottam area. It is suspected that the bear was electrocuted when it attempted to get across a wire fence.

According to the forest department, the said parcel of land is under cultivation by Ramaswamy, aged 86. He has been taken into custody for enquiry.

The forest field staff found the elephant lying dead in the Masinagudi division. Pictures of the carcass indicated blood loss near the trunk and the mouth of the pachyderm.

Mudumalai Tiger Reserve, located in the Nilgiris district in Tamil Nadu, is at the tri-junction of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka. It is home to a wide variety of flora and fauna. Animals such as tiger, leopard, elephant, Indian Gaur (bison), sloth bear are often sighted at the Reserve.

Recently, Mudumalai was in the news after ‘Rivaldo’, a wild tusker captured for treatment, was released back into the wild after three months duration in captivity. 

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