Dec

Elephant calf rescued and released

Bokakhat, Assam: The morning dew had rendered the ground at Borsapori tea estate with slippery earth and treacherous trenches. On that fateful day, an elephant calf was found trapped in one of the trenches of the tea estate.

According to Anjan Talukdar, wildlife veterinarian at the Centre for Wildlife Rehabilitation and Conservation (CWRC) Kaziranga, the divisional forest office at Bokakhat had informed CWRC about the trapped elephant. The deep trenches that served as irrigation canals and as estate boundaries are now posing a biggest threat to unsuspecting visitors and particularly the elephants.

Consequently, a team of forest officials and staff at CWRC had rushed to the spot for rescue. The two-year-old elephant calf was found in a state of trauma.

On finding the trapped elephant in the trench, the villagers informed the forest officials, sensing danger that the natal herd would reappear on the scene to take back the desolate calf. Such situations in the past have caused panic among the villagers that often led to mayhem due to the presence of wild elephants.

Talukdar said that the rescue situation was similar to that of an adult female in Numaligarh Tea Estate in the year 2004, when the elephant had died due to suffocation. In this case, the animal was much younger and had to be lifted out soon to avoid suffocation. He said that the trench was 15 feet deep and two feet wide. It took them more than two hours to bring the animal back to the surface.

The rescued calf exhaled noisily with relief and to the wonder of the cheering crowd. The crowd that had gathered in thousands was thrilled by the several momentous hours of work that went in rescuing the calf. The calf was finally pressed towards a herd on the hilltop that they believed was the natal herd with the hope of reuniting the calf. The calf slowly disappeared into the forest and had not returned since. This led to the conclusion that the calf indeed found its herd.

Talukdar said that the rescue area is being monitored closely for the return of the calf to the scene. He said that the calves in the abandoned state would generally shout when they do not find their mother and linger around the spot where they were abandoned.

The Divisional Forest Officer, Eastern Assam Wildlife Division, supervised the rescue operation along with the staff of CWRC and the forest staff of Kaziranga

National Park. Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) initiated the mobile wild rescue operations in the region since 2001, in collaboration with the Assam Forest Department and the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW).

Pix credit: Anjan Talukdar / WTI