Villagers flock to see the two elephants that died of electrocution at Gerua village. Picture by Bhola Prasad

Jamshedpur, June 2: If poaching pushed tigers to the brink of extinction, electric wires could be termed the greatest enemy of elephants.

A mother elephant and a one-and-a-half-years-old calf died early this morning after being electrocuted at Gerua village, 3km from Dimna (under the jurisdiction of district forest officer, wildlife, Ranchi).

The pachyderms died after coming in contact with live electric wires that were passing about 7ft above the ground.

Forest officials said the wires should be about 12ft above the ground for elephants to pass without touching them.

“Elephants cross this area on a regular basis and the low lying wire caused the trouble. This is a regular phenomenon,” said Siddharth Tripathy, the district forest officer (wildlife) of Ranchi.

Incidents of elephants falling prey to electrocution have been reported from Koderma and Seraikela, too.

The tragic incident at Gerua village today occur- red around 3.30am when a herd was passing through the hamlet.

First, the calf’s trunk came in contact with the live wire and it was electrocuted. The mother died while trying to save the baby elephant. The rest of the herd — three elephants — remained at the spot till 5am and then disappeared into the forest.

The information regarding the animals’ death reac- hed forest officials around 6am and they arrived for investigation.

Post-mortem report revealed that the elephants died of electric shock as blood oozed out of their bodies. The trunk of the calf was charred.

“The animals died on the spot. The shock resulted in immediate cardiac and brain failure,” added Tripathy.

Taking a cue from the incident, the forest department has ordered that all low-lying wires in the area be raised.

“A directive has been issued to the electrical engineers asking them to fix all low-lying wires in the entire district of East Singhbhum,” said A.T. Mishra, the divisional forest officer of Dhalbhum.

All wires passing through the area that are less than 10ft above the ground would be disconnected soon to prevent repetition of today’s incident, said officials.

In a related probe into the incident, the forest officials have booked officials of Jharkhand State Electricity Board for providing electric connection through such a low-lying wire.

According to a recent elephant count undertaken by the forest department, there are 45 tuskers in the core area of Dalma sanctuary. But some more low-lying wires, which forest officials said were present in the region, are enough to reduce that number.