BENGALURU: A video of a scared elephant calf, being chased and driven back to the forests of Bannerghatta National Park, in Ragihalli range, has evoked a mixed response. While activists see red, forest officials have shown sympathy.
In the video, the 15-day-old calf is seen being chased away by locals, gunshots being fired in the air and crackers being burst to scare the calf away. It is seen petrified and irritated. Locals said they saw the calf rushing towards them and each time it was chased inside, it came back and refused to go in.
BNP DCF, S M Prashanth, told TNIE the incident happened on Tuesday but the video was doing the rounds on Wednesday. “The female calf seems to have been abandoned by its mother or has lost its herd. When we got to know that the calf was being scared away by locals, we rushed to the spot and rescued it. It has now been moved to the rescue centre,” he said.
“We were surprised to see the abandoned calf. Experts told us that mothers do it when they are unable to lactate or are under high stress. Sometimes calves are also abandoned if they are unable to cope with the stressed mother. We have been trying to find its herd but haven’t succeeded. The calf is now stressed, sad and tired. It needs a lot of medical care,” he said.
A team of BNP staffers has been deployed to take care of the calf and find its herd. Since Tuesday, they have taken the calf near many herds, but none of them accepted it. Prashanth said the search will continue till its herd is found.
Staffers said if they are unable to find its mother, then a proposal to relocate it to an elephant camp will be made before the chief wildlife warden.
Activists said due to gaps in forest patches the calf must have got separated from the herd.