Official apathy turns forest passage into tusker graveyard

The Tamar forest has long provided passage to elephants migrating from Chhattisgarh to West Bengal and Orissa via Jharkhand. A glance at the paddy fields that exist alongside the path and it is hard to imagine that underneath are buried two female elephants,electrocuted at that very spot. The presence of electric poles,an 11,000-volt wire hanging loose 18 feet above the ground — it is death awaiting elephants in this forest.

The Tamar graves near Rangamati village,60 km from Ranchi,are material evidence of the negligence of forest officials and the Jharkhand State Electricity Board. Tamar’s adjoining Dalma forest,covered under the Union Ministry of Environment and Forest’s Project Elephant,which envisages interalia protection and development of elephant habitat,has,since its inception in 1995,seen more than Rs 60 crore being spent on fencing of trenches to check straying of wild animals. But no trench has been dug anywhere near the spot at Tamar where a herd of 12-14 elephants stopped on March 15. Eyewitnesses say one of the elephants touched the high-voltage electric wire and drew the attention of another elephant. Both got electrocuted.

This is not the first of its kind case in Jharkhand. On August 4,2002,two elephants were electrocuted near Potka village in West Singhbhum district. On September 27,2005,two tuskers were electrocuted at Kulda forest near Torpa in Khunti district.

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Three female elephants were found dead this month. In the first case,the autopsy identified external injuries as the cause of death. The elephant had died at Hudahabdha village under Kharsawn block in Saraikela-Kharsawn district on March 5. In the second case,reported from around the same site,the autopsy report was not made public. The third case was reported from Palamau Tiger Reserve in Latehar district on March 17. The injuries were suspected to have been caused by poachers though the forest officials ruled it out saying its nails and jaws were intact.

Chief Conservator of Forest S K Sharma said that in a meeting held in New Delhi on February 3-4,the Centre had set up a task force to save wild elephants. “Under Project Elephant,we had received Rs 1.40 crore for the current fiscal. We expect the task force to come up with an action plan to save the elephant,” Sharma said.