MYSURU: Thousands living near Bandipur National Park gathered to watch an elephant being captured by forest department officials. The 16-year-old tusker was tranquilised before it was tied with ropes and lifted into a truck.
The elephant from Mudumalai reserve in Tamil Nadu killed two people, triggering panic among villagers in the fringes of Bandipur. Forest officials used Dasara elephants led by Abhimanyu to capture this jumbo. It was taken to Dubare and will later be shifted to Shivamogga.
Forest officials had a tough time carrying out the operation as people poured in and even ran around the jumbo with their cellphones, capturing the chained tusker. The news about the elephant capture spread like wildlife and people came to the spot from nearby villages too.
Speaking to The New Indian Express, Bandipur Tiger Reserve director T Balachandra said that forest officials received a call from locals about having spotted the tusker near Talagattapura area on Thursday early morning.
The forest personnel was armed with tranquilizing guns and had six Dasara elephants led by Abhimanyu, who is an expert in capturing wild elephants. The team rushed to the spot and by 10:30 am they were able to get a shot on the elephant after hours of tracking.
The healthy young tusker reportedly kept on walking away from the foresters. Though the Dasara elephants were able to get a hold of the rogue elephant by 11.50 am, they had a difficult time dragging it to the truck for shifting it to the rescue centre.
However, the manner in which the elephant was shifted invited a lot of criticism from animal activists. Poor management of the crowd caused a lot of strees to the tusker no doubt. Besides, the entire moving process itself was not elephant-friendly either, they said. The forest officials were under a lot of pressure to capture the elephant as it had become hostile recently. And therefore they used khedda to capture the tusker. Though this method is not used anymore, the officials opted for it this time. Khedda is when the jumbo is driven into an enclosure and then picked up into the truck.