Forest officials suspect fungus-laden crops were cause

Iram Siddique

Hours after four wild elephants were found dead in Madhya Pradesh’s Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve, another three who were in critical condition succumbed late Tuesday. Two more elephants are undergoing treatment. A senior forest officer said the elephants are believed to have consumed millet crops that had gathered fungus as villagers had stacked them near the fields after harvesting for several days. The post-mortem report is however awaited. The Print earlier reported that on Tuesday afternoon, the patrolling staff had found four dead elephants in the core Khitauli zone in the national park, which triggered a frenzied search for the rest of the herd.

The forest guard soon found another five elephants slumped on the ground and terribly unwell. Even though veterinarians were rushed from the Sanjay Dubri Park, along with a team of the School of Wildlife Forensic and Health in Jabalpur, three of the pachyderms died. The other two are still in a critical condition. How did they fall ill? The reserve’s deputy director Prakash Verma said the seven dead elephants were from a herd of 13 found usually in the tri-junction area of Khitauli, Pator and the Panpada buffer area. The area has villages nearby. The herd was reported moving Monday night from Bagaiya, Badwai towards Salkhaniya. The elephants were shooed away by Salkaniya residents, a senior forest officer told ThePrint. The officer said there were stacks of harvested kodo and kutki millet crops that the villagers had stored near the fields. “The crops were a few days old and are known to get fungus. It is believed the elephants ate the millets with fungus… this could have been a probable cause of their death.

There were no marks found on the animals’ bodies.” Forest officers said elephants have no tolerance for kodo and kutki, while these millets are staple food for the tribals in that region. Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCFWildlife) Vijay N. Ambade told ThePrint: “The death toll has increased to seven, and we are keeping a close eye on the others as well. The post-mortem of the first elephant has just begun and the preliminary cause can only be established after the report comes in.” Forest officers said that if proven, this would not be the first instance of elephant poisoning in the region from kodo and kutki millet. In 2022, an elephant had died under similar circumstances in the Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve. Several human-animal conflict mitigation measures yet to take off Bandhavgarh did not have an elephant population until 2018 when a herd of some 13 Asiatic elephants came from Chhattisgarh and settled in the park, which has abundant food and water for jumbos.