The Hindu : Karnataka News : Blind elephant captured, sent to Bandipur forest

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Karnataka

Karnataka

Blind elephant captured, sent to Bandipur forest

Staff Correspondent

Bringing it around: The blind elephant (right) that was captured in Karadi Betta in Alur taluk.

HASSAN: In less than a fortnight, personnel of the Forest Department captured the second wild elephant that was on the rampage. The 26-year-old blind elephant was roaming in the forests in Alur and Sakleshpur taluks

The animal is said to have destroyed paddy and sugarcane crops and trampled three persons to death.

Spotted

On Wednesday, it was spotted near a coffee estate in Karadi Betta in Alur taluk, 40 km from Hassan.

A team, including Nagaraj and Srinivas, anaesthetists, and sharp-shooter Venkatesh visited to spot. Venkatesh was successful in tranquilising the elephant.

Trained elephants Gajendra and Abhimanyu did the rest.

They did not allow the rogue elephant to run inside the forest after it gained consciousness.

At 4 pm, the elephant was tied with ropes and metal chains and brought to the base camp near Hemmige, about five km away. The elephant had a calf and was moving around with the help of the latter. It was part of a heard.

A few months ago, the calf was trapped in a barbed wire fencing put by farmers in Madihalli village in Alur tand was electrocuted. Since then, the mother elephant became lonely and became wilder.

The Forest Department earlier capatured a tusker in Kerodi forest in Sakleshpur taluk.

Deputy Conservator for Forests K.H. Nagaraj said the elephant would be sent to the Bandipur reserve forest.

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