Tusker in musth may be the killer

I searched out this story I had filed last year on hearing today that the killer tusker may be back in Periyar Tiger Reserve once again. Forest officials found the carcass of a cow elephant in the lake there today, with indications of the death being the result of an attack of a tusker. Does it mean the killing spree, which we heard about last year, is not over? I propose to follow up.
This is the link to the first of two of my earlier stories:
http://www.hindu.com/2009/04/13/stories/2009041359510500.htm

And, this is the text of the story:
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Photo by special arrangement:
Rescue bid: Forest guards tend to a wild elephant incapacitated by injuries sustained in the “attack of a tusker in musth” in the Periyar Tiger Reserve. This elephant, which died on April 5 a couple of days after being spotted in very bad condition by the Periyar lakeside, was the seventh victim of the yet-to-be identified “killer tusker.”

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: An inter-disciplinary expert team that studied the circumstances leading to the death of seven elephants in the Periyar Tiger Reserve (PTR) in Kerala over the last six weeks has concluded that the killings could be the work of a wild tusker in musth.

When in musth, elephants become aggressive and sexually active. This is a periodic condition in male bull elephants (though rare instances of cow elephants coming into musth too have been reported in a few recent studies).

Elephants in musth secrete a thick tar-like fluid from their temporal ducts on either side of the head. Such a full-grown tusker has been spotted in the area from where the killings were reported, but no injuries sustained in fights with other elephants were visible on it.

“Our first challenge is to correctly identify the killer. We can decide on the best course of action only after monitoring the animal’s behaviour and evaluating various options… And the musth condition will pass after running its course,” said PTR Field Director O.P. Kaler.

The team comprising wildlife experts, elephant specialists, veterinarians, pathologists and top conservation officials visited the locations from where the carcasses of the wild elephants were found. The team obtained sufficient evidence to conclude that the deaths were “due to traumatic injuries caused by the attacks of a tusker and subsequent infections,” said forest veterinary officer E.K. Easwaran.

The dead elephants had sustained fatal injuries such as deep wounds (15 to 25 cm deep) in the neck and skull and other parts of the body. No pathogen could be detected in the carcasses subjected to post-mortem examination.

“Similar incidents have been reported from other parts of the world too, both among African elephants and Asian elephants. But a majority of them involved fights between tuskers for dominance as they moved after herds to seek out receptive cow elephants,” said P.S. Easa, a member of the IUCN’s Asian Elephant Specialist Group, who was in the expert team constituted by the State Wildlife Department to study the development.

In the PTR, however, five of the killed were adult cow elephants. One was a sub-adult female and the remaining one a sub-adult male. “For so many cow elephants to die in fights (apparently with a rogue wild tusker) within a short period of six weeks is somewhat unusual,” Dr. Easa said.

Eleven tusker deaths were reported in fights among elephants in the Corbett National Park in 2008. There had also been six cow elephant killings in various wildlife tracts of Tamil Nadu during the last two years.

The team’s report to the Chief Wildlife Warden said the killings in the PTR could be due to the musth elephant slipping “beyond the limits of normal aggressive behaviour” while accosting cow elephants for courtship. Besides being a Tiger Reserve, the 925-sq-km Periyar sanctuary is also a Project Elephant area with a roaming elephant population of more than 1,000, according to the last wildlife census.

Tranquillising the killer and having its tusks trimmed to make it less dangerous is one of the options before the wildlife staff, but the hilly terrain and the lake skirting the hills of the region could make the exercise somewhat dangerous.

The elephant, under the influence of the tranquilliser, could fall down a slope and die or wander into the lake and drown.

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