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Elephant dies during translocation in K’taka
The death of the elephant was caused by the negligence of inexperienced forest officials, Bengaluru-based environmentalist Joseph Hoover alleged
Tanneer Komban, a wild elephant captured in Mananthawady in Kerala’s Wayanad district, died untimely on Saturday at the Rampura elephant camp in Bandipur Tiger Reserve during a relocation attempt, raising concerns about the handling of such operations and the welfare of wildlife.
Tanneer Komban ventured into a coffee plantation in Hassan in Karnataka six months ago, causing damage to crops and irrigation pipes, foresters said, declining to be named. To address the situation, foresters decided to capture the elephant.
It was caught on January 16, translocated to the Bandipura tiger reserve and fitted with a radio collar. It was released in the wild after that.
The same elephant was spotted in Mananthavady on Friday, prompting Wayanad’s additional district collector Vishal Sagar Bharat to impose curfew to help capture the elephant again. Despite the curfew, the operation faced challenges in crowd control, leading to delays until 5 pm.
The capture operation, which started in the evening, faced additional complications due to heavy traffic. Anesthetic injections were administered at 5:35 pm and 6:18 pm. Forest officials, unable to calm the elephant by spraying water, faced further difficulties in handling the situation. The critical moment came at 10:30 pm, when the elephant was shifted to an ambulance with the assistance of three trained Kumki elephants. The process of sending Tanneer Komban back to the wild, however, proved unsuccessful, and the animal died.
An autopsy was conducted on Saturday in Ramapura elephant camp in the presence of senior forest officials, said P Ramesh, field director of Bandipur Tiger Reserve. Preliminary findings indicate the elephant died due to cardiac arrest as doctors found blood clots in the heart. “The exact reason of death would be known only after receiving an autopsy report,” Ramesh said. The elephant died on its way to the Ramapura camp, he added.
“The death of the elephant was caused by the negligence of inexperienced forest officials,” Bengaluru-based environmentalist Joseph Hoover alleged. The elephant might have died due to dehydration and stress since the animal did not drink water on Friday.
The officials should have poured water on it after it was anesthetised and given it to drink soon after it gained consciousness, “but they did not do it”, Hoover said. Criticizing the handling of the situation by foresters, Hoover said it should not have been captured, but chased away instead.
Kerala forest minister AK Sashidharan expressed shock and concern over the death. ‘’We will conduct a higher level committee to thoroughly investigate the death,” he told reporters. The autopsy was conducted jointly by officials of two states, he said. “There were no lapses in the elephant capture process,” the minister added.
This was the second death of an elephant after another pachyderm called Arjuna, which was a tame Dasara elephant, died in a fight with a wild elephant on December 4.
