Where were the trackers? Questions raised after 4 elephants electrocuted in Andhra's Parvathipuram

Parvathipuram Manyam: Four elephants, including a baby elephant, were electrocuted to death in Bathili, a town in Bhamini mandal of Parvathipuram Manyam district in Andhra Pradesh. The incident occurred in the early hours of Friday. The remaining two elephants moved into the neighbouring cashew orchards under the Manumakonda forest area.

A herd of six jumbos moved from Odisha to Andhra Pradesh in February 2023, perhaps due to favourable conditions. However, some of them couldn’t make it a long way.

Parvathipuram-Manyam DFO GRP Prasuna, Srikakulam DFO Nisha Kumari and forest officials reached the spot. They have launched the procedure for post-mortem with the help of veterinarians and chief conservator of forest, Visakhapatnam.

Speaking to NewsMeter, S. Srikantanatha Reddy, chief conservator of forests, Visakhapatnam, said, “A herd of six elephants were in the area and this happened to be an unexpected incident. It is perhaps the baby elephant, which is playful in nature, that touched the 11KV transformer with its trunk and also moved the block a bit. While the elephant fell down, the other three elephants which tried to rescue the calf too died.”

According to the officer, they have been observing the movements of the herd and informed villagers about the elephants’ movements. “While the incident happened in the fields, the elephants have a habit of pulling down pipelines and drip irrigation,” he said.

Where are the trackers?

After the tragic incident, several wildlife conservators have raised questions on the presence of trackers at the time of the incident. They alleged that trackers who were supposed to monitor the elephants’ movements failed to notify the power department on the movements of the jumbos towards the transformer.

Currently, the area surrounding the Parvathipuram Manyam-Srikakulam districts has three herds with 18 elephants wandering around. According to forest officials, around 28-30 trackers have been deployed to monitor the movements of the animals. For about every 2,000 hectares, one tracker is available.

A wildlife conservationist (on condition of anonymity) said, “Usually, there are trackers to check day and night movements of the animals. And whenever the elephants are near live wires or transformers, necessary steps such as power cuts are taken. If the trackers could have given vital information to the power department, it would not have led to such a tragic incident.”

According to sources, there are around 12 trackers appointed to monitor the jumbos in that particular area. “The monitoring system in our district has to be improved. In a few states, alert messages are given to locals to warn them of elephant movements. There is a need to strengthen our manpower and monitoring methods to avoid such incidents,” said the wildlife conservator.

Odisha court asks for time-bound plan

After the rise in the death of elephants due to electrocution, the Odisha High Court on Wednesday directed four power distribution companies in Odisha to prepare a time-bound plan to survey all villages that have seen movement, attacks, or crop destruction by wild animals, as well as those that have seen deaths of such animals due to electrocution.

In the past two months, 18 elephants and 20 people died in man-elephant conflicts. Of the total, four elephants died after coming into contact with live power lines. The court stated that not enough steps had been taken to prevent the deaths of elephants due to electrocution.

Similar incidents in TN

Similar incidents were reported in Tamil Nadu in March when three elephants died of electrocution after they came into contact with an electric fence.

In another incident, a male elephant died while it was trying to cross a bund and came in contact with a low-lying, high-tension wire of the Tamil Nadu electricity board.