Second oldest camp elephant dies in Tamil Nadu

COIMBATORE: Vijayalakshmi, the second oldest

camp elephant

of the Tamil Nadu forest department, died at the age of 71 in the

Kozhikamuthi

elephant camp in the

Anaimalai Tiger Reserve

(

ATR

) on Wednesday afternoon. The female elephant had not been taking fodder properly for the last 20 days due to digestive ailments.


A four-member team had been treating the elephant for the last 20 days.

Vijayalakshmi was captured from the Ulandy forest range on December 29, 1973 and it was kept at the Kozhikamuthi elephant camp. It was given intensive training. The elephant was used for transporting timbers from one place to another place in Topslip and surrounding areas in the 1980s. Later, the elephant was sued for safari.

Ulandy forest range officer A Kasilingam said a postmortem would be carried out on Thursday. Following the postmortem, the elephant would be buried with state honours.

At present, Kozhikamuthi camp houses 26 elephants, and 75-year-old Sivakami is the oldest elephant of the Tamil Nadu forest department.