BENGALURU: Gopalswamy, the popular 37-year-old camp elephant from the Nagarahole Tiger Reserve (NTR), succumbed to injuries on Wednesday afternoon.
The tusker had suffered fatal injuries after getting into a fight with a wild elephant after venturing into the forest on Tuesday night. He had suffered injuries on his limbs, near his stomach and genital region, forest officials and veterinarians said.
This is the first death of a camp elephant since 2011 and the fourth in the last 15 years, forest records showed. Experts said that such cases are rare as camp elephants are well protected. But over time, they lose their wild survival instinct.
“Camp elephants start getting used to humans after staying in captivity for long. They start developing a tendency to run back to human habitations when they encounter a wild elephant in conflict. Gopalswamy was strong, but it is possible that he could not fight it out,” said a senior forest department officer. Gopalswamy, who was captured in 2009 from Sakleshpur in Hassan, was trained and placed at the Mattigudu elephant camp in NTR.
“While he was a popular kumki elephant, used in many wild elephant capture and rescue operations, he had a close bond with all the mahouts and kawadis. He had returned from Chikkamagaluru just 15 days ago after one such operation. He was popular among forest department circles too, as he had the temperament to follow commands and at the same time retain his wild instincts that helped in rescue operations,” mahouts who worked with Gopalswamy said.
NTR Director Harshakumar Chikkanaragund told The New Indian Express that Gopalswamy was also trained to carry the golden howdah this year for Mysuru Dasara. The postmortem was conducted as per procedure.