As many as 31 spotted deer, a Schedule-III animal under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, have died over the past three days at the Millennium Park in Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited’s township at Kailasapuram, on the outskirts of Tiruchi.
The deer had died one after the other since Thursday. Of them, at least 11 were found to be pregnant.
According to sources, while 17 deer died on Thursday, 8 died on Friday. Saturday saw the death of six deer.
Some of the deer were said to have died even as forest officials and veterinarians were visiting the park to ascertain the cause of death.
Toxic leaves
Although the reasons for these deaths were yet to be established, the preliminary investigations pointed towards food poisoning, Forest Department sources said.
The deer were said to have died after eating toxic leaves of a tree in the park.
Workers at the park, who were tasked with feeding the deer, had fed them with subabul leuceana leucocephala leaves, which are considered to be rich in protein. As the deer had consumed the leaves enthusiastically, the workers had organised more of the feed.
Several deer had fallen ill after a few hours. The first deer that died on Thursday was a female in an advanced stage of pregnancy, the sources said.
Senior officials of the Forest and Animal Husbandry departments in Tiruchi rushed to the spot and performed the post mortem. To get more inputs on the cause of deaths, the carcases of two deer were sent to the Veterinary College and Research Institute at Orathanadu in Thanjavur district.
Investigation by experts
D. Sujatha, District Forest Officer, Tiruchi, told The Hindu that the cause of deaths would be known only after getting the post mortem report.
“The dead animals seemed to have eaten excessive subabul leaves which could have turned toxic. Normally, the leaves are not harmful when consumed with multiple species of grass. There are chances of death when domesticated animals are fed with only one type of fodder,” Ms. Sujatha said. She added that an investigation would be conducted by experts to find the causes of the death. Based on it, action would be taken. The Millennium Park, maintained by the civil department of BHEL, housed about 195 deer of which 31 have died now. The DFO said that several other deer had eaten the toxic leaves.
A team of forest officials and veterinarians was closely monitoring the health of the remaining deer, which were sensitive.
BHEL sources said the public sector major had been requesting the Forest Department to relocate some of the deer from the park as their population had multiplied rapidly.
However, Forest Department officials were wary of such a move as the deer were very sensitive by nature and transporting them by vehicles would be highly risky and could even lead to their death.
