Keonjhar: A baby elephant was rescued from an abandoned well after an ardous operation by forest department officials in Champua area of Odisha’s Keonjhar district on Thursday.
Sources said the elephant calf had slipped into the 10-foot deep well in a forest area along the Baitarani River at Tuntuna under the Champua forest range.
The baby elephant had aparently got separated from a 24-member herd that had come from the Kalikaprasad Reserve forest on Wednesday night. The herd comprised nine tuskers, six female elephants, and nine calfs. The jumbo herd was moving towards Tuntuna forest through Kanchanpur.
On being informed, forest officials rushed to the spot and initiated a rescue operation at early this morning and managed to bring out the calf safely by using JCB.
The condition of the baby elephant was good and it was later released into the forest, according to DFO Dhanraj Hanumant.
