An elephant died after eating trapped fruit (illustration). – SUPERSTOCK / SUPERSTOCK / SIPA
The act caused an uproar. In India, a pregnant elephant succumbed to her wounds after consuming a fruit, probably a pineapple, filled with firecrackers. The wild animal had ventured on May 27 to a village near Silent Valley National Park in the state of Kerala when it ate the trapped fruit.
“The pineapple filled with firecrackers exploded in his mouth, causing serious oral injuries,” said Surendra Kumar, a senior wildlife protection official in Kerala. “We are investigating the case and trying to determine the people behind it and the circumstances that led to his death,” he added.
Uproar on social networks
Villagers in the region often use trapped fruit to protect their crops from animals wild. Others use simple firecrackers or erect electrified fences to divert the
elephants from their fields near forests. The extension of the human presence in India regularly provokes clashes with the local wild fauna, which sees its territory and its living environment cut down little by little.
Last month, another elephant also died in the same way. But the new act sparked uproar on social media after it was posted on Facebook by an official in the forestry department. “She did not hurt a single human being, even when she was running mad in pain through the village streets,” said the author of the message, Mohan Krishnan.
Several hours of agony
Seriously injured, the elephant wandered for several hours around the village before going to plunge its trunk and its mouth in a river to try to remove the flies and insects which came to land on its wounds. She died after several hours of agony. The body of the pachyderm was pulled out of the river by two captive elephants and taken by truck to the forest, where it was cremated.
In India, between 2014 and 2019, 510 elephants were killed by men, including 333 from electrocution and a hundred others from poaching or poisoning. At the same time, 2,361 people were killed in elephant attacks, according to government data.
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