An incident in India involving an elephant went viral and caused outrage worldwide. The elephant died after it ate a pineapple given by bystanders, the pineapple contained firecrackers that exploded inside the mouth of the elephant.
Animal abuse
The wildlife officials in India are now investigating the heartless incident. A forest official posted the death of the elephant in Kerala, India on social media. It was not clear who planted the firecrackers in the fruit, and why it was done. The poor animal spent days in pain before eventually dying.
Veterinarians arrived at the scene, tried to save the animal but unfortunately failed. In India, there are 27,000 wild elephants and 2,500 elephants in captivity.
Prakash Javadekar, India's Environment Minister, said that the government is taking the incident very seriously and is conducting an immediate investigation over the matter.
The chief minister of Kerala said that the investigation is focused on the three suspects who fed the pineapple to the elephant, according to the report of Imran Qureshi of BBC. An official said that the two suspects are being interrogated, the other one is yet to be identified. There has been no formal arrest yet.
The state forestry department stated that there had been no conclusive evidence that links the death of the animal to firecrackers, but experts think that the elephant ate a pig cracker, which is intended to scare wild boars.
The incident was criticized on social media. The chairman of Tata Sons, Ratan Tata, said that justice needs to prevail. Virat Kohli, an Indian cricket captain, described the killing of the animal as a cowardly act.
The elephant was 15-years-old and was two months pregnant. The animal entered the village near the Silent Valley National Park located in Palakkad district where she ate the explosives-spiked pineapple.
Fruit with firecrackers are a thing in the village
According to a Facebook post by Mohan Krishnan, a forest official, the elephant ate the pineapple that has firecrackers inside it. It then exploded in its mouth and the pregnant elephant was in pain for days but continued walking. She eventually died on May 27 while standing in a nearby river in the village.
Krishnan emphasized that even though the elephant ran in the streets of the village because of the pain, she did not harm anyone. The media arrived at the scene and spotted the elephant silently standing in the river. She was putting water in her mouth and her trunk.
According to a senior local forest official, the elephant stood in water for four days, even as the veterinarians and wildlife workers tried to save her life.
Sunil Kumar, one of the wildlife workers, said that they tried their best to save the lives of both mother and child. It is not clear whether the elephant was fed the pineapple spiked with a firecracker or if she accidentally ate it.
The farmers usually scatter firecracker-spiked fruits in the area to keep wild animals away from damaging their crops.
OP Nammeer, a professor of wildlife at Kerala Agriculture University, told the Mint newspaper that elephants are at risk when they wander into human villages to look for food. There are electric fences, crude bombs, and trenches that are used to keep wild animals away.
