Baby Tusker feels threatened

[Hymakar Valluru]

Only a mom and a child .. looks like either they lost their way or have fallen behind from their herd...

Almost same scene as mentioned by Praveen Siddannavar at Bandipur reserve almost 100 mts from the entrance.. instead of motor bike it was a tourist bus and a car within a distance of 10 to 20 mtrs... but they did not get down or stop for long..stopped for a min and moved...

as I was too close... indicated to vehicles behind me and rushed almost 100 mts ahead stopped vehicles from opp direction.... in the mean time forest rangers arrived..

Why do they have to come almost outside the reserve?

[Mrudul Godbole]

Nice to see a tusker. Wish the pole on the left was not present. You could have moved the camera a bit more to the right. What were the EXIF details? Thanks for sharing.

[Sabyasachi Patra]

A major part of the migratory corridors of elephants fall on the outside of the officially declared sanctuaries. So we may wonder what the elephants are doing, however, it is the wrongly defined protected area limits which has resulted in human habitations coming up in the elephant corridors.

Sabyasachi

[Bhargava Srivari]

These scenes are common on the Ooty highway. It has been 4 months since I last visited bandipur, but earlier to that, I had been going there every month for the last 3 years. On numerous occassions, while driving on the highway before and after safaris, we have seen elephants being harassed by motorists. On a couple of occassions, I remember people in cars whistling and hooting after seeing a herd of elephants near the road going to Yere katte; the poor elephants that were looking to cross the highway had only charged at the vehicle for a brief few seconds and went off deeper into the jungle.

Further more, when the Ooty highway was kept open through the night, about until two years ago, we used to drive on the highway at night to observe elephant behavior. I remember herds of elephants standing by the road in utter silence and feeding on the grass. A lot of vehicles wouldn't even know that there were elephants beside the road; such commendable used to be their behavior. However, on multiple occassions, when people noticed them and flash lights directly at them to get a better view, I've seen them charge at cars with great ferocity.

I think these tender giants know exactly to respect those who respect them. The decision of keeping this road closed at nights has proven to be of great value.

tfs