After the death of an elephant in Uttarakhand’s Rajaji national park, the administration has decided to form two different teams for rescuing elephants and leopards with the aim of quick response.
The elephant had died after being rescued.
Amit Verma, the field director for Rajaji Tiger Reserve, informed that the decision was taken during a coordination meeting between Haridwar forest division, Dehradun forest division and Rajaji Tiger Reserve management on Monday.
“Haridwar is a division which shares borders with both eastern and western sides of Rajaji Tiger Reserve and there is a lot of elephant movement in that area, leading to conflict at times. It gets difficult for us to control the elephant movement as different areas have different jurisdictions. So, we decided to have a joint team with officials from both the forest department and the Rajaji administration for controlling conflict. This way we will have administration authority from both the areas and a quick decision can be taken,” said Verma.
The director added that a similar team has been formed for leopards, but it is a more localised issue.
“Conflict due to leopard is a more localised issue and they don’t travel that much unlike elephants who travel across divisions. Conflict due to leopard happens at certain spots and both the forest department and Rajaji administration is equally equipped to tackle with that but still, a team has been formed,” added Verma.
Each team will have around seven to 12 members that will work in coordination with each other.
On May 27, an injured elephant who was rescued after a 14-hour-long operation, succumbed to its injuries.
Forest and Rajaji Tiger Reserve (RTR) officials said that the rescue operation which commenced on May 26 morning went on till late at night. The injured elephant was spotted near Chilla Canal in RTR, in the midst of a canal, after it came therefrom Chilla-Rishikesh road, where it had created panic among the passersby.
Veterinarian and tranquilising specialist Dr Aditi Sharma along with other park and wild life specialist carried out the tranquilising operation successfully. But owing to the elephant being injured and remaining in river water for several hours led to drastic deterioration of its health.
