The death of two bison in National Park Betla the one and only abode of the bison here in Palamu tiger reserve in a span of just 6 days has set alarm bells ringing. Park officials put their number to around 100.

Head of the Forest Force (HoFF) cum Principal Chief Conservator of Forest Jharkhand Shashi  Nandkeolyar said, “There occurred death of two bison in this park. One on April 29 and the other onMay 4.”

Nandkeolyar said, “I have given express directives to the field director PTR Y K Das to step up all necessary measures to ensure well-being of the bison here. I have put them on alert. Our officials are now taking notes of the bison like their health status, movement, food etc.”

On the cause of death Nandkeolyar said, “Samples of these two carcasses have been sent for test in Ranchi. We are awaiting the test report. It will not be any fair to jump to any conclusion right now.”

Reminded that PTR has witnessed one bout of deadly anthrax in one of its prime adult elephant in the nineties here which died a miserable death and so could these two quick death of this schedule 1 wild life bison be due to anthrax Nandkeolyar said, “Anthrax is not on our ruleout list. We are zeroing in on it.”

Sources said a bison died on April 29. The bison which died on May 4was a male one. Sources said in none of these two bodies there was any oozing of blood a fact conceded by HoFF as well who said, “There was no oozing of blood from any of the openings of the body of these two bison.” Blood oozing after death is a stunning sign of death by anthrax and here it was missing on both the dead bison.

Nandkeolyar said, “To abort any risk to this species any more or to other wild life here our PTR officials did a judicious thing. These two carcasses of the bison were burnt down. They were not buried.”

Sources said there were characteristic signs of marbled appearance on the whole of the lungs of these two bison and these appear only when the bison has contacted bovine pleuro pneumonia which is a highly contagious disease.

The HoFF said, “ Our PTR field director has told me that heart failure may be the cause behind  April 29 bison’s death while for May 4 bison death this officer raises finger at bacterial infections.”

“Let post mortem reports of these two deaths come and then we will get it analyzed with lab test reports of the samples of the two dead bison and then we will try to find out if there lies any co relation between these two deaths or these two deaths are just separate ones,” he said.