Alarm in Assam as 4 elephants killed in 20 days

A spate of elephant deaths in Assam’s Udalguri district, part of a crucial corridor along the Bhutan border, has triggered deep concern among forest officials and wildlife experts.

- Biswa Kalyan Purkayastha

Officials said that the areas for the movement of wild elephants have been shrinking due to increasing encroachments.

(GETTY IMAGES)

In just 20 days, four wild elephants have died in the district, three electrocuted and one likely poisoned. Over the past 12 months, at least 14 elephants have been Killed, 10 of them by electrocution. Officials say the crisis is escalating rapidly in a landscape already strained by encroachment, shrinking habitats and intensifying human-elephant conflict.

According to Udalguri Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) Mustafa Ali Ahmed, most of the recent deaths occurred in areas near forests where residents cultivate paddy. “They use electric wires, mostly at night, to prevent elephants from entering their paddy fields, and this causes such accidents,” he said.

They often lay these wires after dusk and remove them at daybreak to escape detection. “Most of the elephants died after coming in contact with high-voltage wires laid illegally by villagers and tea-estate workers to protect crops. We try to check them but they remove the wires early in the morning,” Ahmed added.

The four deaths were reported on October 25, October 30, November 2 and November 13. The first three, at Majuli Tea Estate, Bhutiachang Tea Garden and Basugaon village, were confirmed cases of electrocution. The latest incident involved a six-year-old elephant found dead at Amjuli Hathikhuli near the Indo-Bhutan border, which is believed to have consumed something poisonous.

In the November 2 incident, a tusker was found entangled in live wires allegedly set up by residents living on encroached forest land. A 40-year-old tusker was similarly electrocuted in Bhutiachang Tea Garden on October 30.