CHENNAI: Refusing to intervene, the Madras High Court on Thursday backed the TN forest department’s first-of-its-kind attempt in the country to release elephant ‘Rivaldo’ into the wild after caging him for three months in a kraal.
In a video presented before the first bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice P D Audikesavalu, Rivaldo was seen drinking, foraging, grazing and attempting to extract salts from the mud. According to the forest officials, Rivaldo has not shown any inclination to return to human settlements and is moving in elephant corridors.
Having watched the videos, the court was convinced that the decision of the Forest department was not arbitrary. “...one cannot be sure that Rivaldo prefers captivity than being left open in the wild and he may yet make attempts to make forays into human settlements; but he should always be encouraged to go back to the wild unless it is a question of his survival,” the court said.
The order was passed after hearing a PIL filed by activist S Muralidharan, who argued that Rivaldo cannot survive in the wild as he had lost a part of his trunk in 2010. However, chief wildlife warden Shekhar Kumar Niraj, at the virtual hearing, said Rivaldo had learned to live with his deformities and that the department’s decision to release him was scientific. “We have deployed multiple teams and are using the latest technology to keep an eye on Rivaldo 24/7,” Niraj said.
Mudumalai Tiger Reserve (MTR) wildlife veterinarian Rajesh Kumar told TNIE that the elephant’s rewilding process was going on successfully. “The elephant is happy and has not lost any weight, suggesting it has not found it difficult to take food,” he added.