Kathmandu, Jan 3: It has been found that shotguns were used in the killing of wild elephant in Morang district. The post-mortem report of the elephant that was found dead in the community forest of Sundar Haraincha Municipality-10 of Morang has stated this fact.
Koshi Tappu Wildlife Sanctuary said that the elephant died due to the impact of the bullet hit in the heart. “There are no other effects or injuries, it seems that the shots were fired in a planned way,” said an animal technician of the reserve. Wildlife technicians of the reserve have been doing the post-mortem of wild animals found dead in Koshi and Madhesh provinces at the request of Division Forest Office.
An adult male elephant was found dead in the local Janjagaran community forest of Sundar Haraincha on Monday morning (16th Poush2080 BS). Lal Bahadur Majhi, head of Morang’s Salakpur sub-division, said that the elephant, which was seen in the local forest and settlements near the forest after breaking away from the herd, is about 15 years old. He said, “The news of the death of the elephant came at around 5 am. When the security personnel and the forest team arrived, it looked as if the incident had just happened.”
Forest officials including Majhi believe that the incident may have been planned as the poachers took the elephant’s tail. Before the post-mortem, the police and forest officials suspected that the elephant had died due to an electric trap. After the postmortem, the elephant was buried in Sukuna river in Morang.
As human-elephant conflict increases, 3 wild elephants have died in Jhapa and Morang, east of Nepal, in about 3 months period.
An adult elephant was found dead in Bahradashi Rural Municipality-1 of Jhapa and in Kamaldham Wetland of Rampokhari Community Forest of Bhadrapur Municipality-2.
All the 3 elephants found dead are males. It is the opinion of Division Forest that elephants were killed by electric shock in Bahradashi and Bhadrapur. A herd of wild elephants enters Nepal from India along the banks of the Mechi River in Jhapa. The herd of elephants that entered Jhapa from India 2 months ago has not yet returned.
Wildlife experts say that elephants who are often separated from their herds roam in the forests near the settlements, so the conflict with humans has increased. These tuskers have already killed 5 people from Jhapa, Morang and Sunsari district in a period of one and a half months.
Bhadrapur, northern areas of Jhapa including Bahundangi, Morang’s Madhumalla, Toribari, Letang, Pathri, Belbari, Sundar Haraincha, Sunsari, rural areas of elephant problems have been recurring.
Salakpur forest chief Majhi said that there is a herd of elephants in the northern part of Salakpur in Morang this year. “This is the time for the herd of elephants to return, because there is a group with children, it is not likely that the elephants will return,” he said.
