Man-made disaster: Elephant dies after getting stuck in rail fence in Kanrataka's Nagarhole National Park

A 42-year-old male elephant died while trying to cross over the railway fence in Nagarhole National Park in Karnataka. The tusker had entered human habitation and raided the crop fields last night. The elphant was making its way back to Veerahosahalli range of the national park got stuck over the railway fence. 

Going by the images, it is evident that the Tusker made heavy efforts to extricate itself but left dangling in midair. 

The fence was erected as a barrier along parts of the park to prevent elephants from crossing over to human landscape. 

pic.twitter.com/oiNqmXxA5s

— Parveen Kaswan, IFS (@ParveenKaswan) December 15, 2018

As quoted by The Hindu, the Conservator of Forests and Director of Nagarahole National Park Mr.K.M.Narayanaswamy said that examination of the site indicated that the elephant tried to heave itself out of the situation but its diaphragm was crushed by its own weight and died around 5 a.m.

The Forest Department envisaged erecting the railway fence as barrier for a length of 33 km — in the first stage — along different stretches of the national park bordering human landscape as a solution to mitigate man-animal conflict.

In November this year, a tusker aged around 35 to 40 years was found gored to death by another wild elephant in the same range, in Nagarhole National Park. 

Surprisingly, not a single criticism has come for the fencing project which was approved by the Karnataka Goverment in 2015 with budgetary allocation of nearly ₹212. The project is still under process. 

Take a look at how Twitteratis reacted to this...

Very unfortunate. Heart pains with such headless loss.
We are loosing our invaluable wild animals illogically but deliberately

— Dhruman H Nimbale, IPS (@dhruman39) December 15, 2018

Very sad. Elephants retain collective migration routes, over generations, like a computer programme. The natural instinct takes them to the preferred routes. Human beings in their craze for development, pays scanty respect for the denizens of the wild.

— Mohan Alembath (@tahrman) December 15, 2018

this is terribly sad.

— Priyanka (@autumnrainwish) December 15, 2018

What a massive creature! It is heart wrenching to watch such a massive and majestic creature to have died in such a way. Hope government stops killing such wonderful creatures in the name of infrastructure.

— Nandhini Ranjith (@nandhininranji1) December 15, 2018

This is so heartbreaking. And it is so demoralizing to all those who are trying to save the forests. It is like a fight against our own people.

— (@arpita_dg) December 15, 2018