SEVEN BISON'S REMAINS FOUND NEAR SANCORDA FARM Panjim, Sept 16 -- In a shocking discovery, the skeletal remains of seven bisons were found at a farm in Bela-Sancorda. Two persons have been arrested in the connection on last Thursday, delayed reports quoted forest officials as having said.
"This is the first time in the history of the forest department in the State that such a large number of wild animals were found dead due to human cruelty," remarked Assistant Conservator of Forest Francis Coelho. According to Mollem Range Forest Officer Prakash Salelkar, a forest guard who was patrolling along the Mahaveera Sanctuary spotted the skull of a bison in the private farm on Wednesday. Suspecting something fishy, he entered the farm and noticed large pits which emitted foul odour. The guard then returned to the Wildlife forest office at Mollem and notified RFO Salelkar. On Thursday, a forest team led by Salelkar went to the farm and dug up the pit. The team was surprised to find three skeletal remains of bisons in one pit, two skeletal remains in the second pit and another one in the third pit, while the skeletal remains of one bison had been discovered earlier by the forest guard. The forest team arrested the manager of agricultural farm Uttam Padloskar and a labourer Nagraj Devadega. The accused informed the forest officials that they had acted allegedly under the directives of the Margao-based farm owner. According to the accused, the owner had installed live wires of 950-metres in length and of 240 volts capacity in the farm, to prevent wild animals from devouring pineapples, chickoo, papaya, banana and other fruit plantations from the property. The seven bisons were however attracted to the fruits in the farm, but fell prey to the live wires and were electrocuted. Though the farm is located in an isolated area, the live wires could have endangered the lives of people moving in the area and unaware of electricity passing through the wires. The accused, Padloskar and Nagraj, were produced before the Sanguem JMFC on Thursday and were remanded to five-days custody. On Friday, accused moved bail application before the court, but the bail was rejected. ACF Francis Coelho along with with RFO Salelkar visited the agricultural farm on Friday afternoon and took stock of the situation. Both the accused accompanied the officials and showed the places from where the bodies of the seven bisons were found and later buried in the pits with the help of a tractor. Forest department has detained the tractor (GA-02-J-0473), while attaching a 12 bore gun, an empty cartridge, an airgun and electricity wires. In a late evening development, electricity department began moves for the disconnnection of the electricity supply to the farm. Those assisting in the raid included Dr Caswin Umrigar of Bondla sanctuary, Dr Jog of Animal husbandry, Range Forester Mathew Manjunath, Dharajit Naik, Forest guard Anant Surve, Vishwas Gaonkar, Denish D'Costa, animal attendent Vishwanath Sangodkar and Damodar Gauns. (ENDS) ########################################################################## # Send submissions for Goanet to [EMAIL PROTECTED] # # PLEASE remember to stay on-topic (related to Goa), and avoid top-posts # # More details on Goanet at http://joingoanet.shorturl.com/ # # Please keep your discussion/tone polite, to reflect respect to others # ##########################################################################
