COIMBATORE: Wild elephant ‘Rolex’ is yet to give in to forest department personnel who have been trying to capture it since last month. A renewed bid to capture it will resume on Monday. The order to capture the tusker, which is said to have killed three persons, was issued by the Chief Wildlife Warden Rakesh Kumar Dogra in the first week of September.
The initial bid to capture it got delayed as assistant veterinary surgeon E Vijayaragavan was injured in its attack on September 20 while he was monitoring the animal along with the department staff and elephant trackers.
The process got further delayed as senior officials of the Coimbatore forest division were attending the training programme which was organised as part of the upcoming tiger estimation at Theppakkadu elephant camp in Mudumalai Tiger Reserve (MTR) in the Nilgiris district.
In the absence of senior officials, the decision to engage veterinarians as part of monitoring the animal had not been carried out in the last two weeks. Moreover, the animal was also in musth.
However, sources in the department said that they are still monitoring the animal, but the capture process cannot not be carried out all of a sudden and it may take even a few months or at best be completed within a few weeks. As per the latest update the elephant is in the forest at Ichukkuli near Devarayapuram.
A senior official of the Coimbatore forest division said: “We had tried to dart the animal earlier. However, it got frightened and ran away. This time we are cautious as it is sensitive as was observed during our monitoring. The animal started running away even when our staff showed a torch light towards it, and even when the staff delivered a sound. However, its aggressive behaviour has come down. We are finding a suitable place to execute the capture successfully.
The official also said that Assistant Veterinary Surgeon (AVS) S Sadasivam from the Sathymangalam Tiger Reserve (STR) and K Rajesh Kumar of the Theppakkadu elephant camp in the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve are expected to join their team on Monday as the capture process resumes. Former Joint Director of Animal Husbandry, Nilgiris, NS Manokaran as well as AVS S Vennila are already part of the team.
Sources also said once captured Rolex will be relocated to the Theppakkadu elephant camp where a temporary kraal (a wooden enclosure) is being constructed for it. It will be soft released in the forest after a stay of a couple of weeks at the camp. Forest officials are tight-lipped about the exact location where Rolex will be released.