‘497 deer died in Chennai in past five years’

The submission was made before a division bench comprising Justice M Sathyanarayanan and Justice N Seshasayee in response to a public interest litigation that sought to restrain the department from capturing deer from Central Leather Research Institute (CLRI) campus and other places in Chennai in a bid to relocate them.

Noting that deer habitats are present in Raj Bhavan, IIT Madras campus, CLRI, and Children’s National Park at Guindy, the department said owing to the buildings and increase in human habitation, the areas have come to be filled with waste, including plastics, solid waste and food waste, resulting in the deer consuming them.

The post-mortem examination performed on the dead deer revealed plastic waste to the tune of four kg to six kg. Along with this, deer also get killed due to attacks by stray dogs and hit by vehicles while they cross the road near IIT campus and in the deer habitats that lie in the middle of the city.

Also, denying the petitioner’s allegation that a few deer had died while they were shifted from Taramani, the department contended that 32 deer at CLRI had died so far, of which two that had died in August was due to eating plastics.

With the average annual fatality hovering around 100, it has become a necessity to shift the deer to a safe habitat, the department said in its counter.

The petitioner S Muralidharan, an animal lover, had accused the Forest officials of adopting crude methods to capture and relocate the deer. “Deer is a very sensitive animal. The rate of mortality is high when they are caught and relocated. The low survival rate is also attributed to injuries sustained during capture and transportation,” he said.

He also alleged that the Forest Department had captured 150 deer from Chennai in June and relocated them to Kalakkad Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve where the deer population had dwindled. But it was erroneous, as the deer, accustomed to urban areas, would not survive in the wild, he argued.

The bench has reserved orders in the case without mentioning a date.