A wild elephant was electrocuted after it came in contact with a power transformer on an agriculture field at Gantavari Palli village of Sadum mandal of Chittoor district in the early hours of Wednesday.
A herd of wild elephants entered the thickets of Sadum mandal a few days ago and kept raiding the crops and moving closer to human habitations. On Wednesday, an elephant that got separated from the herd and entered the fields. The Jumbo then came in contact with a transformer, and was electocuted. Forest officials arranged a postmortem of the wild elephant and kept a watch on the movement of the herd in the area.
Farmers deplored that low-lying power cables across the fields and the presence of ground-level transformers with uninsulated cables are the reason for such incidents. It is observed that despite the forest officials pursuing a solution to the man-animal conflict with the power department authorities, the issue remained unsolved due to paucity of funds.
Captured lone elephant dies in SV Zoo Park
In another incident, a wild elephant, which was captured in “Operation Gaja” by the forest department officials near Chittoor and later rehabilitated at SV Zoo Park in Tirupati, succumbed to ill health and unhealed wounds on Tuesday evening.
The elephant, a male in his 20s, entered the forests of Chittoor district from the neighboring forests of Tamil Nadu in August this year. In 24 hours, the jumbo had killed three villagers, one in Tamil Nadu, and two in Chittoor district, before getting captured in “kumki operation” on August 31. It was said to have received serious injuries during the operation. The wild elephant died while under treatment in the zoo park.
Meanwhile, a couple of hippopotami and three swamp deer species arrived at SV Zoo Park on Wednesday as part of an animal exchange program with the zoo park at Thiruvananthapuram of Kerala state. The officials here said that the new species would be an added attraction to the zoo.
