Female pachyderm found dead in GH

TURA: Barely two weeks after wildlife officials busted a poachers gang involved in killing of wild elephants and recovered a pair of tusks from Purakhasia area of West Garo Hills, another of the majestic beasts has been found in a field with wounds to its body in neighbouring South West Garo Hills district on Friday morning.
Villagers from Chapahati area of Mahendraganj border region came across the carcass of the adult female elephant lying in a paddy field at Duragapara area early in the morning.
“The body had some wound on it and a post mortem is being conducted to ascertain the cause by veterinary teams,” informed South-West Garo Hills district police chief Rituraj Ravi while speaking to The Shillong Times over phone from Ampati.
According to Divisional Forest Officer for Wildlife, Tura, information was related to the wildlife team by the border guards of the BASF patrolling the international border with Bangladesh in Mahendraganj sector.
“Our wildlife teams are already there at the site and investigating the cause of death and will soon get a report. We are not ruling out anything, including poaching,” said Wildlife DFO Arpiyush Ch Sangma. According to the DFO, a herd of the wild pachyderms regularly cross over from the Purakhasia, Salmanpara and Mahendraganj area into the plains of Bangladesh in search of food and there have been previous instances of human-elephant conflict. The elephants are also under threat from local poachers in the Garo Hills as revealed from last month’s seizure of ivory tusks and arrest of three poachers from Purakhasia border region.
Wildlife teams at the site are probing the cause of death and tracking the movement of the beast to ascertain the route it travelled on its last journey.