Sambar falls from 50 feet, carcass found next day

Mumbai: A sambar deer died after falling from a height of nearly 50 feet behind Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) in Borivali on Monday. A resident happened to see the deer falling down at around 5pm in the evening and immediately alerted PAWS-MUMBAI, a NGO working for the welfare of animals.  

Resident Sidhhi Tharave, who saw the sambar plunging down, immediately alerted PAWS-MUMBAI, which informed the SGNP control room after which the animal’s body was recovered. Ms Tharave said, “The location is behind Rushivan of SGNP near a mine. I was at the window when I saw the sambar fall off the side and immediately called PAWS founder-member Sunish Subramaniam. He may have called SGNP officials and at around 6.30pm, two officials came to rescue the sambar but in vain as it had grown dark and they did not have any equipment. They came again the next day by which time, the sambar had died. The sambar was still showing movement when I saw him in the evening and he could have been saved if the officials had come earlier.”

PAWS founder-member Subramaniam said, “I got a call from Tharave at around 5.15pm and I immediately informed the forest officials on their control room number. The next day, they retrieved the sambar’s body and conducted a post-mortem. It’s not yet clear how he fell off from that area.”

When contacted, SGNP officials were not available for comment on the matter. Earlier in May 2017, the carcass of a full-grown leopard was found in a decomposed state at the Malad trail, inside the core forest area of SGNP.