Acute water scarcity and prevailing drought led to the death of a 20-year-old female elephant on Tuesday. The elephant, caught in a slushy silt at Santhekane pond near Vadakehalla in Kowdahalli forest range.
The forest officials swung into action with the help of two doctors to rescue the elephant that had entered the pond to quench its thirst and could not come out of the pond. They used the ropes to pull it out from the pond.
The 20-member forest personnel, under the guidance of top officials, had even brought earth mover equipment to assist the elephant to come out of the pond.
While one elephant managed to walk out and reach the bund, another which become weak with infection collapsed even after it was given drips, antibiotics and vitamin dosages .
Though, the forest officials expected that the elephant would recover and come out, it collapsed in the evening.
Veterinary doctors Srikanataswamy and Prayog tried their best to save the animal with availabale drugs, but it died of infections, sources said.
However, the nature of infections will be confirmed after the postmortem on Wednesday.
DCF (Wild Life) Vasanth Reddy, DFO Javeed, RFO Madan Mohan and others are camping in the spot.
Madan Mohan said the doctors are keeping a close watch on the elephant that managed to come out of silt.