Kerala elephant who terrorised villagers released in reserve

A bull elephant notorious for breaking into homes and ration shops to steal rice, earning him the moniker of Arikomban (ari meaning rice in Malayalam and komaban meaning elephant with tusks) was on Sunday morning released into the deep interiors of Periyar Tiger Reserve, forest officials said.

The elephant was radio-collared, a forest official said.

“We are getting signals from the radio collar. His location will be monitored from the tiger reserve. He is very healthy,” another official said.

The tusker, transported by truck, to the tiger reserve on Saturday evening after a 12-hour long operation to tranquilise and capture it.

Giving details of the operation, which involved a large number of forest personnel and four kumki (trained) elephants, a forest official said progress evaded them till the second day of operations, when another tusker, who was a competitor of Arikomban, brought the rice-favouring elephant before the forest officials enabling them to tranquilise it.

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The officials also said that the journey to the tiger reserve from Chinnakanal and Santhanpara areas of this hill district, where Arikomban had caused damage to human settlements, took some time due to the forest roads becoming slushy following rains.

After reaching the deep interiors of the tiger reserve, a ramp was put up beside the truck, the elephant was untied and after it was provided an antidote to the tranquiliser, the tusker got off and walked into the forest, officials said.

The efforts to tranquilise and remove him from Chinnakanal were surrounded by controversies, with animal rights activists opposing the move of the forest department to capture and tame it to make it a Kumki elephant at Kodanad Elephant Training Centre in Ernakulam district.

The matter reached the Kerala high court, which stopped the department’s move. The court, thereafter, appointed an expert committee to study the issue and decide the fate of the tusker, and the panel suggested that the elephant be translocated to a wild area where there would be no chance of conflict with humans.

The committee suggested shifting the elephant to Parambikulam Tiger Reserve.

However, protests against the move led to the Kerala government suggesting an alternative location before the court which asked them to keep it a secret.