New Delhi, Aug. 11: Fourteen elephants have died at the hands of poachers at the Simlipal National Park tiger reserve in Orissa’s Mayurbhanj district. A fact-finding team which visited the reserve blame the field staff at the reserve for burning the elephant carcasses to destroy evidence.
The fact-finding team of wildlife experts comprised, Ms Belinda Wright and Mr Biswajit Mohanty, who concluded that many of the poachers were traditional hunters who had used poisoned arrows to kill the elephants. They had also poisoned the salt lakes, resulting in the deaths of several other species, including cheetals and wild boar. What was particularly shocking was that the field staff burnt and buried the bones of the elephants, in connivance with local poachers, deep in the reserve.
Since this is one of the premier tiger reserves in Orissa, the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) had asked Ms Wright and Mr Mohanty to investigate how so many
elephants had died in a matter or weeks.
Ms Wright refused to hold Maoist groups responsible for the poaching.