BERHAMPUR: Forest officials and volunteers were not able to locate the second elephant freed in Lakhari sanctuary under ‘Operation Gajendra’ till Thursday evening.

It has increased hopes of chances of its survival among the forest officials. “Now we can say the rumour regarding possible death of the second female elephant due to over use of tranquiliser is false,” said the Gajapati Divisional Forest Officer Manas Ranjan Bhatt. His hopes are based on the fact that since Wednesday a large area in Lakhari has been searched extensively and if the animal would have died its body would have been found till now. Search for the elephant is continuing till now.

At present four teams are involved in the search operation. Apart from it the villages near the Lakhari sanctuary have been alerted to inform about sighting of this single female elephant.

Mr Bhatt claimed that they have already searched an area of around 40 square kilometres around the spot where the two tranquilised female elephants transported from Andhra Pradesh had been released. “We are tracking the elephant corridors of the forest and the water holes,” he said.

He said that it was quite unlikely for this single female elephant to get accepted into any other elephant herd so quickly. He hoped that the animal, that was shocked and panicked over the long tranquilised transportation and death of the other elephant after its release might have preferred to run out to some remote distant place of the sanctuary.

The forest department is also busy making preparation on Andhra-Orissa border to welcome the seven other elephants of the herd who are to be shooed out of Andhra limits by a ‘Hulla’ team from West Bengal.

This team would start its operation from Thursday evening. It would use torches and drums to shoo out the elephants out of Andhra limits.

According to the forest officials it would take at least eight to 10 days for the elephants to reach borders of Orissa. “By that time the animals would be panicky. Added to it the aborted attempt in Andhra to tranquilise the elephants has also injured some of them. So, their mood would be quite erratic when they reach Orissa border,” Mr Bhatt said.

As a precautionary measure an awareness drive has been started at villages on the border in Kasinagar block of Gajapati district by the forest officials regarding do’s and don’ts while facing wild elephants.

A team of forest officials is camping at the border and ground work is being prepared to use drums and torches in similar way to drive back the elephant herd to their original abode in Lakhari sanctuary.

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