Tusker crossing road in Nagarhole

[Sabyasachi Patra]

This image of a tusker was created in Nagarhole on 2nd May 2008.

I had parked my Safari on the road side in Nagarhole. This road cuts Nagarhole and goes to Kutta. If you take a left turn you move towards Wynaad (Tholpetta Wildlife Sanctuary).

I saw this tusker in my rear view mirror and immediately got down to watch it. This fellow did something peculiar. He came out of the forest and stopped to look at left and right and then again left and then quickly crossed the road.

It reminded me of my childhood days when my dad used teach me how to cross the road. It also distressing as it means that definitely vehicles are hitting animals in this road. It is a sign of an animal who is aware of the dangers posed by speeding vehicles.

Canon EOS 40D, Canon EF 300mm f4 L IS USM, EF 1.4xII ie. at 420mm, ISO 400, f5.6, 1/400th second, full frame.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Mrudul Godbole]

Thats a very peculiar behaviour. The raised foot indicates that he is running to cross the road. Liked the composition, the tree behind the tusker is a bit distracting. Animals too are getting used to the city life :(.

[Bibhav Behera]

In the run for adjusting to habitat encroaches, and the adaptation to environment principle, this is an eye opener to humans. Are animals the ones to always do the adjusting to suffice our insatiable needs and fancies...

Look what we have made them become... Some might see this as a wow about animal behaviour. I see it as a wake up call to try and understand that if these beautiful creatures can understand, why can't we...

[AB Apana]

Nice one Sabyasachi, I have a similar image taken years ago. The road between Murkal and Kutta is closed from 6 am to 6 pm and has been now for several years.

Apana

[Aditya Panda]

That has pretty heavy traffic... tiger crossings too are quite common.

This guy is in full musth, I'm glad he's sparing a lot of vehicles by avoiding them!

Cheers,
Aditya

[Lakshminarayanan Nataraja]

A Very nice picture. The elephant is robust and his temporal glands are fully stained.

Unfortunately, tuskers are becoming very rare even in South Indian jungles. The elephants in their prime (like the one in potrait), are the ideal ones to mate and produce a fine generation of elephants. But in reality with only very few fine tuskers available there is an increased oppurtunistic mating by adoloscent bulls which will make the generation weak.. (Source: Raman Sukumar's Elephant days and Nights).

Strong conservation measure with political will is needed to save the available tuskers from poachers. Else the tuskers will vanish and only Makhnas can be found.

Thanks,

Lakshminarayanan