Kushalnagar/Pollibetta: A wild female elephant was shot dead and its carcass was found in a private estate at Balugodu in Kushalnagar taluk of Kodagu district yesterday.

It is said that, the elephant aged about 18 years was shot dead by miscreants last night.

Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) of Kodagu Shivaram Babu, Range Forest Officer (RFO) Shivaram, Deputy RFOs Anil D’Souza, Devaiah and Ranjan and Rapid Response Team (RRT) personnel visited the spot this morning and conducted an inspection.

DFO Shivaram Babu said that “They received information about the wild elephant shot at a private estate late last night. When we conducted an inspection this morning, two empty cartriges were also found at the spot.”

Continuing, the DFO said that investigation is going on and they have got information about the killers, whose identification will be revealed only after the completion of the investigation, besides stating that the miscreants will be nabbed soon.   

Wild elephant menace continues in Pollibetta

Though the recent incident of wild elephant attacking estate workers at Maskal Coffee Estate in Pollibetta, Kodagu, in which one Bobby (57), sustained serious injuries and later succumbed to injuries at a private hospital in Mysuru on May 18 is still fresh in the minds of the people, especially estate workers, a similar incident of wild elephant attacking a group of women workers on Pollibetta-Chennangi connecting road has been reported. Luckily, the women workers managed to flee from the spot.

A group of about five women workers were returning home after work, when the wild elephant tried to attack them at about 5 pm. The women, who saw the wild elephant emerging out from a coffee estate all of a sudden, the women, in a bid to save themselves fled from the spot and saved their lives.

Following the incident, women estate workers Manjula, Pushpa, Kavitha, Shobha and others have urged the Forest Department officials to prevent such recurring incidents.

Forest Department officials and staff, who visited the coffee estate, are taking steps                               to drive away the herd of elephants from  the coffee estate, back to the forest.