Four elephants found dead

KAPPASOGE (MYSORE DISTRICT): Early morning on Wednesday, residents of Kappasoge village on the outskirts of Mysore woke up to business as usual. As they set about their daily chores they were shocked to see that three elephants were found drowned in the Kabini Right Bank Canal that passes through their village.

That was not all. They found another elephant carcass closeby, a little later. It was washed away by the water released from the Kabini Dam into the canal. The apathy of the forest department officials to attend to the carcasses only aggravated the situation.

While it is suspected that the four elephants got electrocuted, senior forest department officials have said a post-mortem on Thursday would bring out the exact cause of their deaths. With these four, the number of unnatural elephant deaths in the district this week has gone up to eight. Around 6 am, people on the outskirts of Nanjangud noticed three elephants stuck at the bridge across the right bank canal and thought they were struggling to escape from the swirling waters. But soon they found that they had died with bruises on their body and alerted the administration. Later, another dead elephant was found at Muddenahalli.