Elephant, 71, dies in ATR camp

Coimbatore: Vijayalakshmi, 71, the second oldest elephant at the Kozhikamuthi elephant camp in the Anamalai Tiger Reserve (ATR), died on Wednesday.
The female elephant was not taking fodder properly for the last 20 days due to digestive diseases, a forest department official said.
A team consisting of forest veterinary officer A Sukumar, retired regional joint director of veterinary services N S Manoharan, professor of the Veterinary College and Research Institute S Dharmaceelan and regional joint director of the department of animal husbandry R Perumalsamy was treating the elephant, which died around 2.15pm.
Postmortem will be carried out before the elephant is buried with state honours on Thursday, Ulandy forest range officer A Kasilingam said.
Vijayalakshmi was captured from the Ulandy forest range on December 29, 1973. After undergoing training at the Kozhikamuthi camp, she was used for transporting timber in Topslip and surrounding areas in 1980. She was later used for safari.
Seventy-five-year-old Sivakami is now the oldest elephant at the Kozhikamuthi camp, which houses 26 elephants.TNN