Chennai: A wild elephant died on Thursday after biting into a country bomb placed by poachers in Boluvampatty forest range in Coimbatore Forest Division. A similar incident had taken place in 2020 when a pregnant elephant had died after biting into a firecracker stuffed pineapple in Kerala.
The female elephant aged between 8-10 years died despite treatment provided by veterinarians from Wednesday.
According to a report on The Hindu, the post-mortem of the dead elephant revealed that the female jumbo died due to a jaw injury as a result of the explosion of country-made explosives made by poachers. The Veterinarians also said that the explosion severed the tongue of the animal and broke its left lower jaw.
The Forest Veterinary Officer A Sukumar said, the elephant's stomach was empty since it was unable to consume food or water for days due to the injury.
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The animal might have suffered the injury nearly three weeks back and samples have been collected for histopathological examination in DNA profiling.
The forest officer also deployed a special team to search the villages near the forest to check for the production of country-made bombs. They also deployed sniffer dog 'Valavan' for the purpose. However, the search team could not trace the illegal bombs.
The Forest Department also suspects that the country bomb could have been stuffed in a fruit.
The demise of the elephant was similar to the death of a 15-year-old pregnant elephant that died after eating a firecracker stuffed elephant in May 2020 in Silent Valley National Park of Palakkad.