The amorous wild tusker, which broke into the elephant safari of the Nandankanan Zoological Park here on Friday night once again and attacked other resident elephants of the zoo, was tranquillised on Saturday morning.
“The wild elephant is now under control. We will monitor his movement and behaviour for a few days and take action accordingly,” said Zoo Director Sudarshan Panda. The tusker, enraged by the snarling of resident elephants and activities of zoo staffs, wreaked havoc this time. It attacked resident elephant laxmi and injured her ears, broke the elephant zone gate and the barricade of zebra enclosure number 34 and attempted to break the wired gate of the zebra enclosure while moving through the white tiger safari.
Zoo staff had sealed off the entrance to the elephant zone of the zoo to protect visitors and had asked the Chandaka Wildlife Sanctuary authorities to send Nanda and Yashoda, two trained elephants, to drive out the wild one. Two more trained elephants of the zoo joined them later. The tusker was found after a frantic search over a four-sqkm area, but driving it out still took a toll on the zoo authorities. Unable to tame it, zoo staff had to finally tranquillise it.
It may be noted that the tusker had first sneaked into the zoo from the adjacent Chandaka sanctuary on January 1 forcing the authorities to prevent entry of visitors to the zoo for the better part of the day. The intruder was driven out of the zoo area after two-and-a-half-hour effort on that day. However, it remained in the nearby forest only to return on Friday.