The four suspects, including two Police Sergeants, who were arrested in connection with the killing of a pregnant deer within the Heenugala Reserve at Makulugaswewa, Galewela, have been remanded until August 01 by the Dambulla Magistrate’s Court. 

Dambulla Acting Magistrate Dulanjali Sithumini issued this order after the suspects were produced before the court today (26).

However, the police informed the acting magistrate that steps had been taken to admit one of the suspects to the Dambulla Base Hospital due to his health condition.

The Dambulla Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) had also taken steps to present three firearms allegedly used to kill the pregnant doe to the court.

The two civilians have been charged with killing a deer and possession of firearms, while the two police officers have been charged with aiding and abetting the killing of the pregnant deer within a forest reserve.

Initially, two police sergeants and a civilian were arrested yesterday (July 25) in connection with the incident. Following the interrogation of the suspects arrested, another suspect was apprehended.

Police have also seized three unlicensed 12-bore firearms after the interrogation of the arrestees. 

Interrogation of the suspects revealed that two individuals from the Wahakotte area had entered the reserve to hunt deer. It was further disclosed that one of the suspects is the brother of a serving police sergeant.

After the deer was killed, the suspects allegedly sought assistance from the police sergeant brother, as several local residents had witnessed the incident. 

Investigations indicate that the police sergeant, accompanied by another sergeant, proceeded to the scene where the deer had been shot, resulting in a tense situation involving residents of the area.  

Post-mortem examinations confirmed that the pregnant deer had been killed using a 12-bore firearm. 

Meanwhile, police reported that the driver of the Makulugaswewa Police jeep, who claimed to have been attacked by local residents during a tense situation following the incident, has been admitted to Galewela Hospital for medical treatment.

Police have uncovered more details during the interrogation of suspects arrested in connection with the illegal killing of a pregnant deer that was pregnant in the Makulugaswewa area of the Heenugala Reserve, Galewela.

During the interrogation of suspects arrested, another suspect has been apprehended as a result of ongoing investigations, said Dambulla Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) W. G. M. M. Chandrasiri. 

Police have also seized three unlicensed 12-bore firearms during the interrogation, he said.

Initial arrests were made yesterday (July 25), involving two police sergeants and a civilian. Interrogation of the suspects revealed that two individuals from the Wahakotte area had entered the reserve to hunt deer. It was further disclosed that one of the suspects is the brother of a serving police sergeant.

After the deer was killed, the suspects allegedly sought assistance from the police sergeant brother, as several local residents had witnessed the incident. 

Investigations indicate that the police sergeant, accompanied by another sergeant, proceeded to the scene where the deer had been shot.

These four suspects were brought to the Dambulla Police Station this morning (26) as there was a risk of being detained at the Giranegama Police Station, he said.

Meanwhile, police reported that the driver of the Makulugaswewa Police jeep, who claimed to have been attacked by local residents during the incident, has been admitted to Galewela Hospital for medical treatment.

Post-mortem examinations confirmed that the pregnant deer had been killed using a 12-bore firearm. 

The arrested individuals now face charges related to the possession of unauthorized firearms and the illegal killing of wildlife within a protected reserve.

They are scheduled to be presented before the Dambulla Magistrate’s Court later today.

Americans have transmitted COVID-19 to wild deer hundreds of times, an analysis of thousands of samples collected from the animals suggests, and people have also caught and spread mutated variants from deer at least three times.

The analysis published Monday stems from the first year of a multiyear federal effort to study the virus as it has spread into American wildlife, spearheaded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, or APHIS. 

Scientists analyzed 8,830 samples collected from wild white-tailed deer across 26 states and Washington, D.C., from November 2021 to April 2022, to study the COVID variants that had infected 282 of them.

By comparing sequences from the viruses in deer against other publicly reported samples from databases of human infections around the world, they were able to trace the likely spread of these variants between humans and animals. 

A total of 109 “independent spillover events” were identified, matching viruses spotted in deer to predecessors it likely descended from in previously infected humans. 

Several of these viruses appear to still be mutating and spreading between deer, including the Alpha, Gamma, and Delta variants of concern that drove an increase in deaths earlier in the pandemic, long after these lineages were subsumed by the wave of Omicron variants that continue to dominate nationwide.

Eighteen of the samples had no “genetically close human SARS-CoV-2 sequences within the same state” reported, foiling efforts to track down a precursor variant in humans.

“Overall, this study demonstrated that frequent introductions of new human viruses into free-ranging white-tailed deer continued to occur, and that SARS-CoV-2 VOCs were capable of persisting in white-tailed deer even after those variants became rare in the human population,” the study’s authors wrote.

Three had mutations that match a distinctive pattern of first spilling over from a human to deer, and then later another so-called “spillback” from deer back into humans. Two of these spillback variants were in North Carolina and one was in Massachusetts. 

An investigation with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was able to track down three people who were infected by a variant with this hallmark deer mutation, as well as a handful of zoo lions who were also infected by the same strain. 

None of the humans said they had close contact with either deer or the zoo.

Zoonotic diseases

APHIS researchers have been studying whether white-tailed deer, among several American wildlife species, could potentially serve as a long-term so-called “reservoir species” to harbor the virus as it mutates adaptations to spread among deer.

A previous report from scientists in Canada found “a highly divergent lineage of SARS-CoV-2” that spread from deer to humans.

Government scientists are also concerned with how the virus could affect animals, as it spreads between humans and wildlife. 

“Deer regularly interact with humans and are commonly found in human environments — near our homes, pets, wastewater, and trash,” University of Missouri Professor Xiu-Feng Wan, an author of the paper, said in a news release announcing the results.

The paper’s authors pointed to other examples of diseases spreading between people and deer, like a previous outbreak of bovine tuberculosis among deer that was linked to local “supplemental feeding” efforts to prop up wild deer populations in Michigan.

The CDC has previously urged Americans to avoid close contact with wildlife and their droppings, both to minimize the spread of SARS-CoV-2 as well as other dangerous so-called zoonotic diseases that spread between humans and animals.

“The potential for SARS-CoV-2, or any zoonotic disease, to persist and evolve in wildlife populations can pose unique public health risks,” Wan said.