TINSUKIA: Poachers killed a female elephant in Upper Assam’s Dibru Saikhowa National Park, while a calf accompanying the mother pachyderm has gone missing.
Sources told Northeast News that a gang of poachers shot at the female elephant at Salibari under Guijan Range of the Dibru Saikhowa National Park.
As the injured female elephant fell in a ditch, the poachers trapped the calf, presumed to be around three years of age, and decamped from the forest, the sources said.
Though the Assam forest officials rescued the injured female elephant and arranged veterinary care, the animal succumbed to her injuries after a few days.
Forest guards launched a massive search operation in the area, but the orphan elephant calf could not be traced in and around Guijan.
Khanindra Das, DFO of the Wildlife Division told the media that an investigation has been instituted to find out the modus operandi of the poachers in killing the female elephant.
Though the forest officials could not trace the orphan elephant calf, there are reports that the poachers may have transshipped it to a different location.
Local environmentalists are worried with the incident of killing of the female elephant and subsequent missing of the elephant calf in Upper Assam’s Dibru Saikhowa National Park.
“We don’t understand as to how poachers get to enter the highly protected Dibru Saikhowa National Park, and carryout the heinous crime of opening fire and killing wild elephants,” one of the environmentalists said.
The wildlife activists working in the area are of the opinion that wild elephants are killed randomly by poachers from the nearby forest villages, and sell the meat in Arunachal Pradesh.
They also alleged that the elephant calf may have been sent to one of the camps in Arunachal Pradesh for training, and will subsequently sold to temples in mainland Indian states.
