Peacock deaths cause a flutter

On August 22, local farmers 8212; Vaibhav Khedkar and Abhijit Kalamkar 8212; found a few peacocks dead in their farms and immediately informed the police and forest officers. A team of the Forest Department rushed to the spot and recovered five dead peacocks and 12 peahens. On August 23, six more peacocks and four peahens were found dead in the same area.

This forced Forest Minister Babanrao Pachpute and senior Forest Department officers to visit Khedkar Vasti. A probe was ordered, and a team of forest wardens was deployed for carrying out surveillance of the area. Before dying, the peafowl had vomited. Experts from animal husbandry, disease investigation section conducted post-mortem of the birds and collected samples of grains and soil from the spot.

A majority of the peacocks was found dead around poultry. The investigation team also seized a bottle of pesticides. It is suspected that peacocks died due to consumption of the poisonous pesticide that was sprayed around the poultry. The samples of pesticides were also collected.

However, there was a delay in ascertaining the cause of deaths as the viscera of dead birds was sent late to the RFSL, Pune, because of weekend. Further, the sample of remains of peacocks and pesticides, chemicals, soil and grains were rejected by the RFSL, as they were not submitted in a prescribed format. After this, the samples were submitted in the prescribed format.

Assistant Commissioner G B Lokhande of Animal Husbandry disease investigation section said it would take time to ascertain the cause of death because the number of dead peacocks was more. 8220;We are analysing whether the peafowls suffered from any disease. RFSL would test the samples to check if the birds were poisoned,8221; he said, adding frequent load-shedding was also causing problems in carrying out some tests. The RFSL is trying to submit the forensic report by the end of the first week of September.

Meanwhile, three more peacocks in the same area have died, the last on September 1. While the cause of deaths was not confirmed, villagers from the neighbouring Rautwadi claimed some miscreants hunted two peacocks last month. The Forest Department filed a complaint under the Wildlife Protection Act.

Range Forest Officer D J Ghadge said, 8220;We will form teams for counting the number of peacocks in the belt. The teams will also guide citizens on the dos and dont8217;s for the security of peacocks.8221;

Villagers, however, allege negligence of the Forest Department in protecting peafowl, particularly in a 20-km belt in Shirur taluka comprising Khedkar Vasti, Morachi Chincholi, Waghale, Lande Vasti, Bhambarde and Ranjangaon. At places, industrial units were coming up fast in the peacock belt.