The consequences of human-animal conflicts in Tamil Nadu are certainly giving worse outcomes, with the state losing over 10 elephants, four leopards, deer, and numerous creatures, mostly to unnatural deaths in the past two months alone.

Be it a train accident, road kill, poaching, or plain mismanagement, it is the animals that have been at the receiving end each time, along with human beings, who were at the wrong place at the wrong time, resulting in deaths.

While the situation is thus across the state, Coimbatore alone had buried nearly eight elephants in the past 30 odd days.

The conflict reports, which were being regularly carried by the local newspapers, hit their peak in the media when Madukkarai Maharaj, an 18-year-old tusker died within hours of getting captured from the Madukkarai forest range. The plan to tame the animal and train it as a Kumki backfired badly with the animal dying a slow and very painful tragic death.

Deaths kept occurring with alarming regularity, with a 25-year-old cow elephant getting killed by a speeding train between Madukkarai and Ettimadai stations, the very next day.

Even as officials called for a special meeting to curb such incidents a few days later, elephants kept dying, with another tusker getting run over by a train along the same route, about 10 odd kilometres away from the previous spot, near the Tamil Nadu–Kerala border.

Meanwhile, death continued to plague the tuskers, with two tuskers dying in Sirumugai Range, one due to starvation (an injury had broken its lower jaw and it was not able to eat), and the other for similar reasons, but this one was being treated by the Kerala Forest Department.

Poaching and electrocution also took their share, with one elephant in Wayanad found dead in Tamil Nadu, with bullet wounds, and another getting electrocuted by electric fences near Mettupalayam.

Buses too joined the list of elephant killers. The Makhna elephant, which was run over by a bus on the Krishnagiri – Hosur Main Road on July 4, died in the Nilgris, failing to respond to treatment.

With the number of dead elephants touching 12, the voices of environmentalists finally became loud enough to not be ignored anymore.

“These deaths merely show that we are unable to manage the issue, rather looking to address the consequences, which would still keep increasing the death count on both the sides,” said environmentalist K. Mohan Raj.

He further added that unless the department took productive steps, more incidents would occur.

Meanwhile, the elephants have been joined by leopards and spotted deer, on the accelerated mortality list, with the deaths of many other smaller animals going unnoticed.