After guzzling 'mahua', 24 elephants crash in forest in Odisha

A herd of elephants were found sleeping tightly after apparently consuming ‘mahua’, a traditional country liquor, near Shilipada cashew forest in Keonjhar district in Odisha on Thursday morning.

Villagers who came in the morning to process the liquor that they had left mahua flowers in water pots overnight to ferment were surprised to find 24 jumbos sleeping in a scattered manner. They also found the liquor pots broken.

“We went into the jungle at around 6 am to prepare mahua and found that all the pots were broken and the fermented water is missing. We also found that the elephants were sleeping. They consumed the fermented water and got drunk,” Naria Sethi, a villager, said.

There were nine tuskers, six females and nine calves.

“That liquor was unprocessed. We tried to wake up the animals but failed,” he said.

They then called the forest department who came and beat drums to wake the pachyderms.

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The elephants then went deep inside the forest, said Ghasiram Patra, the forest ranger.

Sethi said the herd left the place at around 10 am.

The forest official, however, is not sure whether the elephants got drunk after consuming fermented mahua.

“Maybe, they were just resting there,” Patra said.

Villagers, on the other hand, insisted that they spotted the elephants sleeping in intoxicated conditions at various places close to the broken pots on Tuesday.

Traditional tribes in various villages of India prepare mahua liquor by letting the flowers of Mahua tree (Madhuca longifolia) to ferment in water overnight.

(With agencies inputs)