Bhubaneswar, Oct. 4: Pesticides have claimed the lives of at least ten peacocks near the Pakidi hills in Ganjam district in the last two days. Orissa government has launched an inquiry into the deaths.

Forest officials today arrested G. Shyamasiba Rao, a farmer hailing from neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, following allegations that the peacocks succumbed to the pesticide sprayed by him on cotton crops in the area.

The officials recovered the carcasses of the peacocks from cotton fields at Kerikerijhola and Ambuabadi villages near Pakidi hills.

The issue appears to have brought Orissa forest minister Debi Prasad Mishra and agriculture minister Pradeep Maharathy face to face. While Mishra said it was imperative to know whether the peacocks died because of excess use of pesticides by the farmers of the area, Maharathy felt that farmers’ interests also ought to be protected. The matter is being investigated by both forest and agriculture department officials.

Sources said that farmers from Andhra Pradesh have been cultivating cotton on leased land in the area on a large scale. Cotton being a high-yielding cash crop, its farming has become a rage in Ganjam and its adjoining districts.

Sources said that forest officials first recovered seven dead birds from the cotton field near Kerikerijhola and Ambuabadi villages near Pakidi hills. Three other birds, which had taken ill, died during treatment. “The birds died after consuming the flowers of cotton which had been sprayed with the poisonous pesticides,” said a senior forest officer.

Rao, who hails from Timapur in Andhra Pradesh’s Guntur district, was arrested under the Wildlife Protection Act. He had been growing cotton in around 60 acres in the area and admitted to having applied pesticides to save the crop from the peacocks.

The issue came to light when members of the local peacock protection committee informed the forest officials. They have deployed their special squads to prevent the entry of birds into the cotton fields.

The 1970-hectare Pakidi Reserve Forest in Ganjam is a well-known peacock habitat. Peacocks roam freely in the villages of the area where people revere them. They treat the birds as symbols of good luck and try their best to protect them.

However, rampant use of pesticides by the cotton farmers of the area appears to have cast a death shadow on the peacocks. The death of the birds in such large numbers has alarmed both peacock lovers of the area and the forest officials who are determined to take preventive measures.