After drinking liquor, 24 elephants sleep for hours in India
People of a village in Odisha, India went inside a forest to prepare ‘mahua’, a traditional country liquor, but found that a herd of elephants already devoured the water fermented with the intoxicating flowers and are in deep sleep, Deccan Herald reports.
The villagers living near Shilipada cashew forest in Keonjhar district saw that a total of 24 jumbos, who were apparently drunk, were sleeping near the place where mahua flowers were kept in water in large pots for fermentation.
“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.
There were nine tuskers, six females and nine calves.
“That liquor was unprocessed. We tried to wake up the animals but failed. The forest department was then informed,” he said.
The elephants then went deep inside the forest, said Ghasiram Patra, the forest ranger.
The forest official, however, is not sure whether the elephants got drunk after consuming fermented mahua.
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.
The flowers of Mahua tree (Madhuca longifolia) are fermented to produce an alcoholic drink also called Mahua. Tribal men and women in various parts of India traditionally make this liquor.