Bid to radio collar wild elephant suspended in Mettupalayam as three kumkis sent for rejuvenation

COIMBATORE: Three kumkis (captive elephants) that were brought from

Anamalai Tiger Reserve

to help

forest department

officials radio collar a wild elephant in Mettupalayam were on Wednesday sent back to Topslip for rejuvenation.

The forest department said the three kumkis that were brought to Mettupalayam more than a month ago began undergoing physical changes, including foot and leg injuries, due to a change in place forcing them to take this decision. The project to radio collar the elephant has also been postponed to post monsoon season.

The forest department had brought three kumkis—Kaleem, Venkatesh and Mariappan—from

ATR

to Mettupalayam to help in a process to radio collar wild elephant Baahubali. The male tusker elephant, Baahubali, had been a known crop raider for the past three to four areas in the Mettupalayam-Sirumugai Forest range.

“We decided to radio collar the elephant after we began receiving too many complaints from farmers on crop damages. Baahubali also is so used to humans and eating outside the forest, that it doesn’t respond to any of the farmers or our scare tactics. He is not dangerous either,” said

Sirumugai

forest officer, Senthil Kumar.

The decision to radio collar the elephant was taken to identify his forest exit route and timings so they could send him back at the boundary itself and also for research purposes like distance it travels within and outside the forests, why it does not eat within the forest etc. “However, for radio collaring we needed the elephant to come to a suitable place— a spot in plains—by 5 pm. However, twice it came close to darkness and then began avoiding us altogether,” said Senthil Kumar. The rains on and off further hampered plans.

However, by this time two of three kumkis began getting physically stressed. “Two of them refused to lie down throughout their time in Mettupalayam. Thus, they developed foot injuries because of standing for days together putting so much weight on their feet,” said another officer. “They couldn’t adapt to change of place easily,” he added.

District forest officer

Venkatesh Durairaj

said it was “necessary to rejuvenate the kumkis. The work to fix the radio collar will resume once the appropriate season comes and the animal comes to the suitable place,”. “It is also currently raining here and many rivers and streams within forests receive high levels of water from the Ooty region. At present, Baahubali is in the Nellithurai reserve forest area, which is an unsuitable place to fix the collar,” he added.