50 wild elephants electrocuted in Sri Lanka this year
Around 50 wild elephants have so far been electrocuted by unauthorised electric fences or wires in Sri Lanka this year, the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) said on Monday.
The over one-and-a-half month long terror of a wild elephant at Jwalapur locality in Haridwar ended on Friday, with the forest department tranquilising and shifting the tusker to another part of the forest. The elephant had created panic by killing two persons and injuring two other in recent weeks.
Since the past two days the tusker had become active at the BHEL-Jwalapur locality forcing people to rfemain largely confined to their homes. The forest department is also hunting for another elephant that was spotted with the tusker recently. The forest department first tranquilised the elephant, wrapped a belt around its body and lifted it by a crane to be fainally taken to the forest and released in the wild.
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The operation was complicated and the presence of a large number of onlookers created a challenging situation for the forest staff. Even after tranquilising the elephant, the other processes involved took over six hours.
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Forest warden (Haridwar) Komal Singh said, “Boundary walls are being erected in elephant affected areas. Forest department will be putting sugarcane and salt inside the forest to stop jumbo movement in residential areas.”
As a precautionary measure the forest department has started early morning and night patrolling in the affected area. The BHEL locality shares its boundary with the Rajaji Tiger Reserve. The first incident took place on 13 January when the jumbo killed 50-year-old Chander. It was followed by another similar attack in which Ajeet Singh lost his life on 16 January. Manjur and Rajnikanth Shukla were lucky to survive an attack from elephants this month.
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