Chased by villagers, Dalma calf drowns in canal

[Mrudul Godbole]

Chased by villagers, Dalma calf drowns in canal
Debajyoti Chakraborty, TNN | Oct 13, 2012, 02.29AM IST

SONAMUKHI: Chased by locals, a seven-year-old elephant calf drowned in a canal early on Friday. The parents of the calf survived the water current, but have received severe injuries.

Villagers alleged that a herd of 150 Dalma elephants crossed over to Galsi a fortnight back and have been on the rampage at Patrasayar, Sonamukhi, Joypur and Bishnupur. The jumbos have destroyed several ripe paddy fields in the area, said locals.

About 70 to 90 elephants were spotted roaming in Indkata Forest late on Thursday. Fearing another rampage, the villagers tried to chase them away. While most of the elephants managed to flee, two adults and a calf fell into a DVC canal. Though local people informed forest officials immediately, they did not turn up fearing public outburst.

On seeing that the elephants were not being able to stand up to the current, villagers got down rescue them on Friday morning. Though they brought out the male and the female elephant with ropes and bamboos around 8.30am, the calf had already died. Later, forest officials reached the spot and retrieved the calf's body with a crane. The post-mortem was done later in the day.

DFO Kunal Deival told TOI that the forest officials are keeping tabs on the herd. "Both the rescued elephants have suffered serious injuries. They have also been in human contact, thus it is feared the main herd might fight with them and refuse to accept the duo," he said.

[Sabyasachi Patra]

A very unfortunate situation. The elephants have no where to go as their migration routes have been mainly usurped by real estate developers, industries and farmers. Increased fragmentation of their habitat as well as reduction in the diversity of the plant species is posing huge problems for them. No wonder when they find crops with high calorific value they feed on those. We are ready to offer laddoos to the elephant headed Lord Ganesha but are snatching away his food and shelter.

There is no place for God!