Puri: A wild elephant that had created havoc in several villages of Odisha’s Puri district was tranquilised after 30 hour operation by Forest officials on Tuesday.
According to sources, the people of Chandanpur were panicked as the tusker entered the area on Monday and damaged the crop in their farmland. “For the first in my life, I saw a wild elephant intruding into our village. The pachyderm roamed around the village and damaged our crop in paddy fields,” said Maheswar Pradhan, an old villager.
On being informed, the Forest officials arrived at the place and started ‘Operation Gajaraj’ to capture the elephant by tranquilising it. But it proved to be tough task for them.
The Forest officials of 5 ranges under Puri division and 2 ranges under Khurda division along with a tranquilising team were engaged to track the elephant and capture it. First, they kept waiting in Sector 11 of Balukhand sanctuary, where the tusker was moving, to transquilise it.
But the team failed to find suitable place to fire the tranquilising dart at the elephant as it kept on moving. The wild animal then entered Sector 9 of the sanctuary. Here also, the Forest officials had to wait for several hours and finally, the team managed to successfully fire the dart at 9.30 am.
[Watch] Tusker Tranquilised After 30-Hour Operation In Odisha’s Puri – YouTube
The big animal continued to give a tough time to the Forest officials as it moved around with the dart pierced to its body. Finally, the tusker fell down unconscious at around 11 am.
The forest officials then tied it with ropes and iron chains. With the help of cranes, the unconscious tusker was lifted and loaded to a truck. The elephant was taken to Nandankanan Zoo near Bhubaneswar amid security arrangements by the Forest officials.
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