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Monday, May 07, 2007
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Elephants retreat, leave calf behind

It had fallen into a ditch and injured itself; in good condition now

Bhubaneswar: After keeping the wildlife authorities, police and local people on tenterhooks for three days, a herd of elephants, which had entered an area on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar retreated on Sunday to the jungles.

The elephants, that returned towards the Chandka forest early Sunday morning, left behind a calf which had fallen into a ditch on Saturday injuring itself.

"Two doctors from the Nandan Kanan Zoological Park examined the injured calf and found it to be in good condition. The calf was being fed artificially," divisional forest officer of Chandka A.K. Patnaik said.

Arrangements were being made to keep the calf in an enclosure in the natural environment so that the herd could interact with it and take it away with them by breaking the enclosure whenever they wanted, Pranab Mohanty, range officer, said.

Wildlife officials were keeping a watch on the calf.

Matter of concern

They were, however, worried as elephants are known to reject calves which come in contact with humans.

In fact, after the calf was rescued from the ditch, wildlife personnel had left it on the retreating path of the herd.

"But either they failed to spot it or did not wish to take it along with them," the officials said.

The herd had caused panic after breaking into the Kalinga studios, located near Bharatpur, last Thursday.

One of the elephants even attacked and seriously injured a forest guard while several others, including mediapersons, suffered injuries while trying to get close to the animals.

The intrusion also hampered the shooting schedule of an Oriya film being shot in the studios. — PTI

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