Bandhavgarh: Alarm over the death of 10 elephants in India’s national park

There have been some reported cases of animals dying after eating the crop, although this is not very common.

According to a report, in 1933, fourteen elephants died near a forest in the southern state of Tamil Nadu after consuming kodo millet., external co-authored by ecologist Raman Sukumar and mycologist TS Suryanarayanan in the journal Down to Earth.

Mr Sukumar, who has worked extensively on the conflict between Asian elephants and human-wildlife, told the BBC that elephants often eat millet when they enter fields in search of food.

Elephants have a good sense of smell, but mycotoxins are odorless and tasteless.

“My feeling is that elephants were trying to eat as much as possible in the shortest amount of time because they knew farmers would chase them away,” he said.

He adds that weather likely also played a role in the mold growth on the millet. Days before the deaths, there were heavy rains in the region, creating humid conditions conducive to fungal infections.

After news reports started blaming kodo millet, authorities destroyed some crops in villages near the national park.

The toxicology report recommends examining and destroying the remains of the fungus-infected crop and preventing domestic and wild animals from entering such fields.

But farmers in the area said they have been growing kodo millet for years without any ill effects.

Mr Sukumar also says it is still rare for fungal infections to produce mycotoxins in kodo millet.

“The elephants were unlucky this time,” he says.

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