Saturday, November 24, 2018

Illegal electric fence claims wild elephant’s life in Erode

Erode: A 25-year-old tusker was killed after it came into contact with live wires of an illegal electric fence erected around a
maze field near Kermalam here on Friday. Forest officials have arrested the land owner in connection with the incident.

According to forest officials, the carcass of the elephant was first spotted by villagers near the maze field on the early hours of

Friday. The villagers immediately alerted the Kermalam forest officials.

Preliminary investigation revealed that the land owner, identified as K Rangaraj, 42, of Sujalkarai Meesaikarathotti village near

Kermalam, had installed an electric fence around the field to protect the crop from the wild elephant raid. “He hadn’t obtained
any permission from the concerned officials to erect the electric fence,” a forest official said.

The village, he said, was situated adjacent to the Kermalam reserve forest. “On Friday around 4am, the elephant ventured out
of the reserve forest to taste the maize in Rangaraj’s land. As it tried to damage the fence using its trunk, the tusker accidently
touched the live wires and died on the spot.”

The official said Rangaraj had taken electric supply to the fence from the state government’s free electricity scheme. “He
usually connects the electric line to the fence at night and disconnects it at dawn. We have arrested Rangaraj and registered a
case against him.”

The carcass was, meanwhile, buried in the forest area after postmortem

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