Haldwani (Uttarakhand): In an alarming development with regard to elephant conservation, as many as 1,357 elephants have died across the country in the last 14 years, a Right to Information application has revealed. In reply to the RTI application, in the last 14 years, 1,357 elephants have died in different states of the country.
Of these, 898 elephants have been killed by electrocution, 228 due to hit by a train, and 191 by poachers. Alarmingly, as many as 40 elephants have been poisoned to death, the RTI application revealed. RTI activist Hemant Gonia, resident of Haldwani, Uttarakhand, said that in the month of June, he had sought information from the Central Public Information Officer in the Prime Minister's Office.
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He said that he recently received the reply to his RTI application through Dr. Muthamiz Selvan, the scientist looking after Project Elephant. According to the RTI application, of the total elephant deaths in the last 14 years, 27 elephants have died in Uttarakhand after being hit by a train. The RTI application further revealed that the estimated number of elephants in the country is 10,139 elephants including North East's Arunachal, Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, Nagaland, West Bengal, Manipur and Mizoram.
There are 3,128 elephants in the East Central region consisting of Odisha, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal (South). In the North West region, there are 2,085 elephants in Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Himachal. The number of elephants in the southern region of Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Andaman Nicobar Islands is 14,612.
RTI activist Hemant Gonia said that the way elephants are suddenly dying in the country, questions are being raised on the functioning of the Forest Department given the heavy spending on the conservation budget. Gonia suggested that the Union Forest Environment Ministry needs to make special efforts for the protection, conservation and promotion of elephants.
