Coimbatore: Within a span of 38 days, yet another wild elephant was captured in the forest division here on Friday, in an operation named ‘Chinnathambi Gaja yatra’, that was radio collared for translocation.
Following continuous petitions by some farmers and brick chamber owners of Thadagam valley, politicians pressurised the forest department to capture the two so-called ‘crop raiding’ tuskers, that stayed inside the Coimbatore forest division for more than a decade, instead of migrating across the Western Ghats.
While forest department personnel made an attempt to dart Chinnathambi last month itself, the animal escaped into a banana plantation and remained inside accompanied by two other tuskers, while another so called crop raider, the majestic innocent jumbo weighing 4.5 tons, named ‘Vinayagan’ by local tribals was sighted by the forest department, tranquilized, radio-collared and translocated to the Mudumalai tiger reserve on December 18.
Chief Conservator of Forest, Deepak Sri Vastava, said that after tracking Chinnathambi for more than 30 days, a team of 50 anti-poaching watchers and rapid response teams sighted him near the Pannimadai CRPF camp and Kathirnaickenpalayam a few days ago, accompanied by a female and its calf.
Splitting Chinnathambi from the female and the calf with the help of kumki elephants Kaleem, Mudhumalai, Bomman and Vijay near Somayanoor, Vinayagan was radio collared.
A team of veterinary doctors led by Dr Manoharan, darted Chinnathambi in the early hours of Friday by around 6 am.
With a combination of ketamine and xylazine, the animal lost partial consciousness and was radio-collared for monitoring its movement and behaviour, added the official. By around 12 pm, Chinnathambi was moved into a truck.
Its two tusks got hit and damaged while being goaded into the truck.
The elephant also suffered injuries while the kumkis pushed it into the truck by prodding it from its rear with their tusks.
The operation was monitored by DFO D.Venkatesh and range officer S. Suresh, accompanied by assistant conservator of forest, C. Dinesh.
The elephant was transported to the Varakaliyaaru elephant camp in Anamalai Tiger Reserve. There, it will be released into the dense forest, said officials.
