A pregnant elephant died in Kerala, India after she allegedly ate a pineapple stuffed with firecrackers. The fruit exploded in her mouth badly damaging her jaw and eventually causing her death.
The Kerala Forest Department has lodged an FIR (First Information Report) against those responsible for the death of a 15-year-old pregnant wild elephant.
The Wildlife Warden of the Silent Valley National Park said this was a serious crime whosoever was behind it.
“We are quite certain that we will find the perpetrators of this crime, which is in no way acceptable at all. It was on the 23rd of last month we came to know about this incident when the elephant was spotted near a water source outside the national park,” said Pachuau.
As per reports, some people had placed firecrackers inside a pineapple and this was eaten by the wild elephant and in the process of chewing the cracker burst and injured the elephant.
“We called a veterinarian and later on the 25th, an elephant expert David Abraham came and examined and explained to us the bad situation,” said Pachuau.
“We informed the Forest officials that its situation was bad and two days later the elephant died in the water.”
The next day, when we conducted the post-mortem we found a nearly two-month-old fetus. From the uterus, we could make out it was the first pregnancy of the elephant. That sight left many of us deeply sad and moved.
Only when we conducted the autopsy, we could see that the upper and lower jaw, teeth and tongue of the elephant was badly damaged. The cause of death is due to the aspiration of the lungs as it was filled with water. It was a sad day for many of us,” said Abraham.
Soon after the autopsy was conducted, the dead elephant was buried in the Forest.
“Two sets of teams are probing this incident,” added Pachuau.
Meanwhile, several Bollywood stars including Anushka Sharma and Varun Dhawan condemned the incident and called for harsher laws against animal cruelty.
