M F AHMAD
Daltonganj, Aug 17: The postmortem of the carcass of a female elephant shocked the management of the South division of the Palamu Tiger Reserve as it revealed that she was 20 weeks pregnant.
Mukesh Kumar, deputy director of the South division of PTR told lagatar24.com last night (August 16) that the dead female elephant had a 5-month pregnancy which on calculation comes to 20 weeks.
Mukesh Kumar said there is everything big about the elephant and so the pregnancy of the elephant is also big. He said it is such a mammal which has a huge long 22 months of pregnancy.
“Our dead elephant was a 5-month pregnant and we feel saddened for her and her unborn calf’s untimely death,” added Mukesh.
Reportedly, the elephant had a terrible fall from the hillock nearby in the jungles of Ramandag compartment 1 and underwent shock and trauma due to this. Her thud caused the foetus to eject from the womb and it got meshed up between her two hind legs.
The elephant in the family way was 35 years old. “The loss of the mother and the growing calf in the womb is a serious loss to the tiger reserve Palamu,” mourned the deputy director South division of PTR.
This elephant has, like all other female ones, two rudimentary tusks one measuring 3 inches and the other 6 inches. These two rudimentary tusks were intact on her body.
This female elephant was found dead on its 3rd day of passing away and the officer who reached the jungles where she was rotting for 3 days was not the ranger but the deputy director South division Mukesh Kumar.
The episode took place under the Garu east range of the Palamu Tiger Reserve and Ranger Arun Kumar holds this range as his additional charge since he is the ranger of Banari under the Lohardaga district.
The ranger Arun Kumar admitted he could not reach the site where this elephant was lying as a carcass on 15th August ostensibly for the Independence Day celebration. It was deputy director South division Mukesh Kumar who reached by traversing 2. 5 km right in the jungles up and down.
The postmortem was conducted on Tuesday. The team, besides experienced veterinary doctors and touring veterinary officers, had a senior IFS officer in V S Dubey who has a veterinary degree to his credit. The other members were O P Sahu, Sushila Bagey, Meera, Anil Kumar Kerketta and others.
It was a 2-hour-long postmortem that went through right where the carcass was found in the jungles.
As the location was difficult to be reached by any JCB machine to dig up the grave for the elephant, she was covered with mounds of soil to further enhance its already decomposing of carcass.
“The foetus thrown out of the body has been preserved as a high-level team of elephant experts of the Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun is scheduled to visit PTR in September which will be shown this preserved foetus for its analysis of it by the team,” added Mukesh Kumar.
According to sources, this fatal fall that took the toll of a pregnant elephant is not the first incident in the PTR. It has happened in the past too.
Severe lightning has also led to the death of the elephant in the PTR and a handy example of it is the orphaned Rakhi elephant which is being brought up by the Betla range office of the PTR. Rakhi was orphaned when her mother died by lightning, said Betla range office sources.
