Two elephants died after they accidentally came in contact with a live 11kV power line in Nellihudikeri in Karnataka's Kodagu district on Monday, July 25. The incident took place at a private estate where the forest department authorities had drawn the power line. The male and female elephants came in contact with the live power line while passing through the estate and collapsed as a result of shock from the overhead power lines.
BNN Murty, Conservator of Forests, Kodagu Circle said that the power line was damaged by constant rain, and while it was lying haywire inside the estate grounds, two elephants, a female elephant who was around 12 years old and a male elephant who was about 14, came in contact with it. Officials from the forest department and Chamundeshwari Electricity Supply Corporation (CESC) visited the spot.
He said that a case has been registered under the Wildlife Act, and an FIR has been lodged against the CESC officials for their negligence. He claimed that even though CESC was instructed to cut and remove all the branches near the power lines, no necessary action was taken.
Speaking of solutions to stop this from happening, Murty said that the live power lines in the coffee region, which has a substantial elephant population, must be replaced with insulated cables.He also urged to look into the trip logs and find ways to manage them as CESC recharges the power lines five minutes after the trip, without looking into the cause.
L Somaraju, Superintending Engineer, Chamrajanagar-Kodagu, said that the trimming of branches takes place at regular intervals but as the incident took place in a private estate, not much information is available currently. He added that in most cases, the private estate owners don't allow CESC members to trim the branches.
According to Somaraju, work on replacing power lines with insulated cables has begun in areas near human habitation. "Replacing the power lines throughout the district will cost up to ten times as much," he said. As a response, Murty questioned if one could bring back the elephants lost to electrocution, "The cost of replacing the power lines isn't as expensive as the lives of the elephants," he said.
There is more than one instance where elephants have died from electrocution. One of the biggest mass electrocution deaths ever recorded dates back to June 2017, when four elephants from the same family were electrocuted after stepping on a broken live power line in Madikeri. As per the data provided by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, 116 elephants died of electrocution in Karnataka between 2009 and 2019.