Elephant Killed, Then Eaten in Assam

Guwahati, Jan 29 : On the same day when a rhino carcass was discovered in Kaziranga National Park, villagers of Murpholuni forest beat stumbled upon an elephant carcass in the Kaziranga Karbi Anglong Elephant Reserve which covers an area of 1881.51 sq km of which an estimated 596 sq km has been encroached.

Poaching of elephants has rarely been reported. Elephant deaths were either due to speeding trains or vehicles and the it's the phenomenon of man-elephant conflict which had engaged wild life experts.

So, while the rhino and the tiger were under stress from poachers, the elephant seemed under stress from habitat loss due to large scale encroachment of reserve forests and elephant corridors.

But the latest carcass indicates that the elephant is also the poachers' target.

When the forest officials were informed they denied it was a recent killing and refused to even visit the site.

Golaghat district where the incident took place had 58 wild and 37 domestic elephants as on 30 September 2009.

In Assam 5246 elephants were found in 2002 census while in 2007, 5281 elephant were counted. Significantly the number of tuskers have gone down from 237 in 2002 to 169 in 2007.

But the forest department records do not reflect any tusker deaths.

Perhaps elephants were being poached but not revealed by the concerned authorities.