Tamil Nadu

Elephant calf dies after three-day struggle

The elephant calf that died on Tuesday morning.

SATHYAMANGALAM: The one-and-half-year-old male elephant calf, which struggled to survive for the last three days in the hills here, finally breathed its last on Tuesday.

According to sources in the Forest Department, the calf breathed its last around 9.55 a.m. after failing to overcome problems in “nervous coordination” and capitalise on the treatment by the Forest Department staff.

The calf’s mother, a 20-year-old elephant, which was with its first child during the three-day ordeal, sensed the end nearing and returned a few hours earlier to the forests to join its herd.

The calf-mother saga began on Saturday morning after residents of Mariapuram village, about 12 km from Thalavady in the Sathyamangalam hills, spotted the calf lying immobile on an open land.

They soon alerted the Forest Department staff, who found that the calf unable to walk. The mother who was then with the calf was trying her best to take the calf to the forest area, the official said. The department staff, who initially thought the calf to be weak, diverted the mother’s attention to supply food.

After failing to note any progress in the calf, the department requisitioned the services of a veterinarian, who arrived on Sunday afternoon.

By then the staff had also asked for the services of a kumki trained elephant.

On Sunday, using the kumki to keep the mother away, the veterinarian administered injections to the calf. The department staff did not stop with that though.

“Using the residents’ support, a small canal from a water tank to the calf was dug, so that it could drink water,” the staff said. They also massaged the calf’s legs with neem oil that day.

“Despite the two day’s treatment, there was hardly any improvement in its health, ” said the veterinarian N. S. Manoharan. And, the end came by Tuesday.

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