One of the two elephants which have unleashed terror recently has been tagged by the forest department for constant monitoring of its movements. With this end in view, the elephant has been collared for the first time in the Rajaji Tiger Reserve since Uttarakhand was formed in 2000. The other one going on the rampage in areas near the Rajaji Tiger Reserve was tranquilised and released in the deep forest area a few days ago.
Forest department officials said that a radio collar has been put on the second elephant through which the park officials would monitor its movements every hour.
To fix the radio collar, the forest department took assistance of experts from Wildlife Institute of India (WII). Now, the team of scientists from WII would also be assisting the forest officials of Rajaji National Park and Tiger Reserve for monitoring the movements of the rowdy elephant for a few months.
Speaking to The Pioneer, WII scientist Bivash Pandav said, “The elephant could be tamed finally after great efforts of several days and the radio collar was successfully fixed on it. For the next three years, the forest authorities and the scientists would keenly observe the movements of the elephant. If it is found again behaving queerly further action would be taken.”
The measure taken by the forest department would not just help check the rowdy behaviour of the elephant forcing its way into the residential areas adjoining Rajaji Tiger Reserve but would also give an opportunity to the young students and researchers to get more useful information about such queer pachyderms, said Pandav.
The RTR director Sanatan Sonkar said that the task of fixing the collar on the rowdy elephant was difficult. “It is, of course, an achievement for the officials who successfully completed the operation, given the paucity of resources,” he added.