TN forest dept reunites baby elephants with herd in Sathyamangalam tiger reserve

In a touching tale, the Tamil Nadu forest department ensured the reunion of a 60-day-old elephant calf and a sub-adult male elephant with their herd in the Satyamangalam tiger reserve on Tuesday, though the efforts to save their ailing mother turned futile, a senior official said.

Inspite of the best efforts of the forest department, the mother elephant succumbed to her ailments, Additional Chief Secretary, Environment and Climate Change, and Forests Supriya Sahu, said.

”However, in this hour of darkness also the team did not lose hope and made sincere efforts to unite the calf with her native herd,” Sahu, said.

With the help of drones and thermal cameras, the team monitored the movement of the native herd and after tracking the location of the herd and confirming that the young calf’s sibling was there in the same herd, the team successfully united the herd in the wee hours of today, she said in a release here.

Further trackings confirmed that the calf has been moving with her native herd under the care and protection of another lactating mother in the herd, Sahu added.

On March 3, the forest department officials at Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve in Erode district detected a female elephant lying in a distressed condition with her two calves, a sub-adult male calf and a two-month-old female calf, going around the mother, traumatised and scared.

Immediately, a team of veterinary doctors who rushed to the spot treated the ailing elephant with IV fluids, antibiotics, analgesics and necessary medication. Thermal imaging and blood tests were also conducted, the release stated.

Veterinary doctors: A Sukumar, N Kalaivanan, E Vijayaraghavan, Sadhasivam, K Rajesh Kumar and K Kumar Research Scientist from All India Wildlife Council tried their best to revive the female elephant.

The sub-adult male elephant was successfully guided by the team to join the elephant herd. However, the female baby elephant was found traumatised, and she started running uncontrollably, necessitating the deployment of an expert team of elephant men from the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve, including elephant trackers from Anamalai Tiger Reserve, and led by Forest Range Officers, Foresters and Forest Guards to reunite her.

The services of drones and thermal cameras were utilised to assist the team in the operation.

This is the second successful attempt this year in facilitating the orphaned or lost elephant calves reunite with their native herds. ”The Government of Tamil Nadu is also the first state in the country to have brought out a Standard Operating Protocol (SOP) for taking care of young/juvenile elephant calves and for reuniting them with their herd,” Sahu said in the release.

Field Directors: Rajkumar of Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve, Venkatesh of Mudumalai Tiger Reserve, Ramasubramaniam, Anamalai Tiger Reserve, besides Deputy Directors, Mahout and other officials and staff of the department were involved in the operation.