Tusker Trapped in Railway Fence Freed After Hours of Rescue Operation

Bengaluru: A tusker (22) trapped for about 8-hours in between iron bars of rail barricade at Mugguru range of Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary falling under Kanakapura taluk of Bengaluru South district on Wednesday early morning before forest officials swung into to release the trapped tusker after a couple of hours of operations. The tusker got trapped in the iron bars in trying to get back into the forest after foraging straying out of the Sanctuary.

“The tusker tried to sneak through a narrow gap in the rail barricade and his bludged stomach made it difficult for the animal to pass through the narrow gap of the rail fence and was trapped before RFO Sridhar got an alert at around 6.30 am over the animal struggling to free itself from the trap,” said DCF Jagannath to Deccan Chronicle.

Swinging into action, DCF said forest officials initially tried to release the tusker by loosening the nuts and bolts attached to the rail barricade but could not succeed. Later, they engaged gas cutters to bend the iron bars and by then vets sedated the tusker to make their task easier. Eventually, the trapped tusker was freed at around 12.30 pm before vets administered revival medicine for the sedated tusker.

Jagannath said the tusker is healthy and no injuries were found on its body when it was released while a drone camera is keeping tabs on the tusker to know its condition in the forests. After the trap incident, DCF said to seal the gap so as to prevent reoccurrence of such incidents in future.

Close to a decade now, the forest department has taken to fence the forest borders through rail barricading to prevent elephants from straying out of the forest areas to nearby villages/fields, and fenced borders of Bandipur, Nagarahole, Bannerughatta among others in Karnataka.

Previously, there have been a couple of incidents of elephants trapped in rail barricading in Bandipur ranges before they were set free. In one incident, an elephant succumbed after his body was caught on rail barricading while attempting to cross it in Nagarahole National Park, a couple of years back.