Elephant killed in Odisha, tusks recovered

An elephant was killed allegedly by poachers who tried to take away its tusks near Sipakuda under Ganjam district's Rambha forest range today.
Forest official recovered the carcass of the 30-year-old tusker and around one-and half feet tusks recovered from the spot. Though the exact cause of its death is not known, they suspect the jumbo might have been poisoned.
"Since the elephant has no injury marks, we suspected it might have died due to consumption of poison," a forest officer said.
The cause of death of the tusker can be known only after getting the postmortem report, said divisional forest officer (DFO) Chilika Wildlife Division BP Acharya.

The animal was suspected to have migrated from Chandaka elephant sanctuary near Bhubaneswar, was roaming in the area lonely after six other members of the elephant herd were killed by a speeding train near Rambha on December last year, sources said.
Forest officials however said it was not an instance of poaching as the miscreants did not take away the tusks from the spot. But it needs to be throughly investigated to establish the cause of the death, DFO said.