GUWAHATI, OCT 14: The carcass of a wild elephant was found in a field near the thermal power station in Namrup in Dibrugarh district on Friday morning. The carcass of the jumbo was discovered by local villagers who informed the forest department.
Forest officials have started an investigation and it is suspected that the wild jumbo may have come in touch with live electric wires passing through the area resulting in its electrocution. The postmortem report is awaited which will determine the cause of its death.
Locals said that the elephant which was part of a wild herd has ventured out from the nearby Jeypore rainforests.
The growing instances of wild elephant straying into human settlements and farming areas has been attributed to shrinking forest cover and encroachment on elephant corridors which have forced the pachyderms to move out from their ecological space and stray into places of human habitation.