BHUBANESWAR: The Forest department is set to resume the kunki training of elephants at Kumarkhunti in Chandaka Wildlife Division as soon as the animals have recovered from the infection and the facility has been made virus-free.
The training had been suspended temporarily following an outbreak of herpes which claimed the life of a five-year-old female elephant and infected three others. As the situation has returned to normal, the facility is ready to restart its operations, officials said.
A senior official said four elephants had been kept in isolation and preventive care following the elephant endotheliotropic herpes virus (EEHV) outbreak in the centre. They are out of danger now.
“Three of the four elephants had been detected with low viral load following death of the female jumbo due to herpes. However, after two weeks of anti-viral treatment, their test results have turned out to be negative,” said the forest officer.
He said after one more week, the health condition of the jumbos are expected to improve further. Accordingly, the kunki training of these elephants will be resumed gradually after September 20 without giving much stress to the animals, he said.
The Forest Department had started providing kunki training to the orphaned and rescued captive elephants at Kumarkhunti in May this year.
They were to be deployed for capturing, calming and herding wild elephants and driving them away during conflict situations.
The outbreak of the virus at the facility, however, put a brake on it for over a fortnight.
It also prompted the wildlife wing of the Forest department to issue advisory to all divisional forest officers (DFOs) to follow the SOP on EEHV issued by the Central Zoo Authority (CZA) as the virus infection can be highly fatal when transmitted to young elephants.