^{The baby elephant seen inside the water tank at A2 village, on the fringes of Pakke Tiger Reserve}

Pakke Tiger Reserve, Arunachal Pradesh, May 21, 2017: Working in concert with the Arunachal Pradesh Forest Department, an IFAW-WTI Mobile Veterinary Service (MVS) unit yesterday engineered the rescue of an elephant calf that had got stuck in a newly constructed water tank in A2 Village, Seijosa, on the fringes of Pakke Tiger Reserve.

Villagers had apparently first heard the baby elephant’s cries at around 9 o’clock the previous night. They investigated in the early hours of May 21 and found the calf inside the water tank with its mother nearby, trying in vain to extricate it. The forest department was informed and in turn intimated the MVS unit based at Pakke.

Villagers had found the calf inside the water tank with its mother nearby, trying in vain to extricate it.

A forest department team comprising Divisional Forest Officer Tana Tapi, Deputy Ranger Tado and frontline staff accompanied MVS veterinarian Dr Rinku Gohain and animal keepers Doluk Dagang and Biri Aman to the village at around 6.00am. The mother was chemically restrained and the team first tried to get the calf out of the tank manually, but to no avail. A JCB was then called in; the walls of the tank were partially broken down and some earth deposited into it. Eventually, after struggling for about half an hour, the calf was able to make its way out.

The sedative earlier administered to the mother was then counteracted; once she had recovered, she and the calf walked off into the jungle to the joy of all onlookers. The operation had taken two-and-a-half hours from start to finish.

^{A JCB was eventually called in to partially break down the tank’s walls and deposit some earth into it so that the calf could climb out}