DHARMAPURI: Forest department on Friday night captured the wild tusker that had strayed from the elephant corridor nearly two weeks ago.
A lone tusker, believed to be about 12-years-old, had emerged from Marandahalli forest two weeks ago and was raiding crops in the nearby land. Palacode forest staff tried to chase the elephant back into the forest. A week ago, it wandered away from the corridor and entered the vicinity of the Dharmapuri municipality causing panic.
Since then, over 50 forest staff from Dharmapuri, Palacode and Hogenakkal have been monitoring tusker. Forest teams had been unable to find a suitable location to trap the elephant. However in the late hours of Friday, they tranquilised the tusker near Bommidi.
Speaking to TNIE, a forest staff said, “The villages close to Dharmapuri forest range are densely populated and it would have been risky had the tusker wandered into a populated area. Further the tusker is also in ‘musth’. So it will be aggressive and its behaviour would be extremely erratic. Our prime focus was to ensure the safety of the staff, the people and the elephant. If we act with haste there is a possibility of the elephant also getting injured. We tried to tranquilize the tusker thrice before but it failed.”
DFO Rajangam was unavailable for comment. However, sources in the DFO’s office said, “In the late hours of Thursday , the tusker was near Kadathur where it has been contained by the forest staff. Every time we tried to tranquillize the tusker, it would wander into the forest with dense trees, which makes it challenging to relocate the elephant.
Vehicles are usually not reachable in these forest areas. over 50 staff were closely monitoring the situation. However in the late hours of Friday, the elephant wandered near Bommidi where conditions were favorable and we were able to find a suitable location to tranquilize the elephant. Efforts are underway to relocate the tusker”.