Elephants Death

Tags: National News

A whopping 1,160 elephants were killed in the country due to reasons other than natural causes in the past 10 years up to December 31, 2020, according to the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC). 

• This came to light after Tenkasi based RTI activist R Pandiraja had filed an RTI query over the deaths of wild elephants before the Ministry of Environment and Forests' 'Project elephant' division this year.

Key Highlights

Figures provided by the Union Environ Ministry over the death of Elephants across the country:

• Electrocution claimed the lives of 741 elephants.
• Train hits led to the death of 186 pachyderms, followed by poaching - 169, and poisoning - 64.
• Karnataka and Odisha lost 133 elephants each due to electrocution and Assam reported 129 deaths.
• Among elephant casualties due to train hits, Assam stood first with 62 deaths, followed by West Bengal at 57.
• A total of 169 elephants were killed by poachers in the last 10 years and Odisha reported the highest - 49 deaths, followed by Kerala 23.