Forest Four off to dart border jumbo - 350km truck journey for elephants

From The Telegraph

Alipurduar/Balurghat, Jan. 3: Four kunkisstarted for South Dinajpur from Jaldapara to help foresters capture an elephant which has been running around in the border villages since Saturday.

The divisional forest officer, Raiganj, Apurba Sen, has been camping in South Dinajpur since the elephant was spotted by BSF jawans at dawn on Saturday on the other side of the fencing at Tapan’s Arjunpur. The area is about 90km from district headquarters Balurghat.

“For the past two days, the elephant has been on the move most of the time and we are keeping a watch on it. However, it crossed the fence into Indian territory yesterday morning and entered the Tilon area of Tapan. It then went north towards Gangarampur and has crossed innumerable rivers and creeks, constantly hounded by villagers. It entered the Kusmandi area this afternoon,” Sen said.

The divisional forest officer said he was more worried about the harm the humans could inflict on the animal. However, till now the elephant has not caused any harm, he said. He said the elephant had possibly from the forests in Jharkhand and had entered the district after crossing over from Malda.

“We had called in a wildlife squad from Sukna that arrived this morning and they are helping us monitor the movement of the elephant. But now, we have called in kunkis from north Bengal so that the animal can be tranquillised and captured,” Sen said. Kunkis are pet elephants of the forest department.

Back in Jaldapara, Dhupjhora and Gorumara, the patawalas or assistant mahouts painted patters on the foreheads of the four kunkis with coloured chalk before they were loaded onto the trucks for the 350-kilometre night-long journey to Kusmandi. Mahouts believe a decorated animal augurs well for any operation undertaken by them.

The four elephants which are to be pressed into service tomorrow are Sambhu and Laxmi from the pilkhana (where pet elephants are kept) in Jaldapara wildlife sanctuary, Surjya from Dhupjhora and Shilabati from Gorumara National Park. All four forests are in Jalpaiguri district.

According to forest sources in Jaldapara, both Sambhu and Laxmi were well experienced in the task and had already been successful in capturing wild elephants in West Midnapore and Cooch Behar.

The divisional forest officer of wildlife III, Om Prakash, said the four kunkiswould reach Kusmandi by tomorrow morning. “We will have to assess the situation and decide what to do tomorrow, if necessary we will have to tranquillise the animal and try and release it in the forest,” he said.

Sen said all throughout Saturday and yesterday there was an apprehension that the elephant might cross over to Bangladeshi territory. “The BSF has been in constant touch with the Bangladesh Rifle to try and keep the animal within our territory. So far, they have been successful,” he said.

Sen said it would have been impossible to dart the elephant on Bangladeshi territory as there was no way that a truck could be taken to the other side to load the animal since there were no inter-border roads available.