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Tusker Caught in Act - Masturbating
The incident I am going to narrate took place in Corbett National Park in presence of my family, my mother, our guide Vijay and driver Rizwan.
We were staying put at Sarapdulli forest rest house on the day of this encounter. After the morning breakfast, was driving down dhangari-dhikala main road. As we approached the area called Rohini padao, we heard a strident alarm call of a Sambar, followed by continuous call of chital, probably about 50 to 75 m on the left side of the road, inside the dense forest patch. We decided to wait for some action or sighting of the supreme predator or a leopard. While we were waiting motionless, with each pair of eyes waiting to see some movement and each pairs of ears waiting to hear some sound, our guide Vijay whispered sir “tusker… tusker”, we looked ahead and saw a musth bull slowly walking towards our jeep, flapping his ears and swinging his head. Our driver Rizwan, switched on the engine of the gypsy, ready to maneuver the vehicle as needed.
None of us in our family or the guide or the gypsy driver had slightest of inclination what will be unfolding in our presence in next 10-15 minutes. We had 3 Nikon DSLR, two compact digital (one Sony and one Samsung) and one video (JVC) camera recording the events. Video was being handled by my son who got scared as the tusker was nearing, result of which was video recording did not go well. Nevertheless, the still cameras did fantastic documentation of this rare event, by capturing nearly 200 frames between all the cameras.
The first thing the musth bull did was stopped about 40-50m from our gypsy, turned right and started to push a massive Sal tree by the side of the road with all his might. After the unsuccessful attempt to bring down the tree, the bull slowly walked towards our gypsy, about 30 m from us it turned left and again started to push another tree smaller in size.
The bull appeared to be extremely uncomfortable, and that was being displayed by his aggressive moves and indecisiveness. Could guess he may have been trying to relieve his pains by pushing his tusk against the tree.
Lone tuskers at peak of musth have been basis for many a true stories of ferocious elephants, we were waiting for the bull to display unpredictable, dominant, and excitable behavior. Expecting a charge any moment, but were amazed to observe, when his huge penis started to protrude with light transparent green urine being discharged. As can be seen in the photographs, the tusker’s temporal glands are badly inflamed and secreting temporin. The surrounding smelled of sharp stench from discharges of pungent fluid, rich in testosterone that was running down his cheeks.
You will note from the pictures that one of his tusks is not there, a wild guess, may be lost in fight. Another aspect, the tusk may not be lost in fight, but may have been lost due to some other reasons. Previously, it has been observed that most of the males with one tusk lost the other due to infection during the permanent tusk formation after the first pair had fallen down. Another reason for single tusk can be genetic disorder. If the tusk is lost in physical combat, the broken remaining part can be seen in most of the cases.
Coming back to the subject, the musth bull finally decided to block the road by standing across with his right side facing us, we could now observe his penis started to erect hard with veins visible. Initially, the bull started to tap his erected penis few times under his belly, followed by rubbing the tip of his penis on his under belly vigorously for about 20 seconds or so. By this time, we could see his body muscles becoming taught and twitching and his aft part was curving in, at this moment we noticed he had put his trunk into his mouth. And then followed the unbelievable, the bull went into spasm and all of a sudden his body weight was transferred on to his hind legs and his rear end pushed his penis hard with a jerk, against his underbelly. And then his muscles started to ease off and he stood relaxed and normal for a minute or so before moving.
After the act, the tusker seemed to be relieved and we could notice viscous fluid (semen with urine) droplets dripping from underbelly and penis tip. It was an awesome experience and none of us could believe our eyes that we have been extremely fortunate to observe one of the most private and secretive behavior of tuskers.
May be, this is one of the first documentation of such an event. The elephant slowly walked away into the bush, giving us the way. After the elephant walked away into the bushes, we went closer to the area he was standing and observed traces and musty smell.
Thank you for reading the experience patiently and viewing the photographs of the rare experience.
Any comments, analysis or deduction from the enumeration is welcome.
