Around 70 forest officials are on a continuous effort for more than 50 days to capture a rogue elephant codenamed Palakkad Tusker -7 (PT-7), who has been straying in the Dhoni area, located in the Puthupariyaram and Akathethara panchayats of Kerala’s Palakkad. “This is one of the biggest operations ever by the Forest department. We hope that the operation will be successful, and it will bring relief to people,” forest minister AK Saseendran told the media on Saturday, January 21.
Though the officials aimed to capture the tusker in December last year, they could not. There was much anticipation that the tusker would be tranquilised on January 21, but the team had to stop the attempt for the day. They will keep at it in the coming days.
Since the first week of December 2022, almost 70 experts have been camping in the Dhoni area with two Kumki elephants and a kraal (a strong enclosure made of wood for the elephants) to somehow capture PT -7. Kumki elephants are the ones that are used to tame wild elephants and coax the sedated animal into the specially designed rescue vehicle. A 26-member team from Wayanad including Chief Forest Veterinary Officer Arun Zachariah has also been camping at the place and has made all arrangements to administer a tranquiliser shot to PT-7 when found.
Arun Zakariah told the media that they are waiting for the elephant to move to suitable terrain to tranquilise it. There are challenges in timings also since the elephant comes out only at night. Currently, the terrain where the elephant roams around is the main challenge. There is a special team tracking the elephant continuously for the last two months. Additionally, there are separate teams deployed on this like the tracking team, support team, darting team, kumki team, and transportation team.
According to the forest officials, the tusker wandered outside the forest for a total of 180 days in 2022. The team plans to shift the elephant to Wayanad, where it can be trained into a kumki elephant. The tusker is estimated to be between 20 to 25 years of age, medium-sized, and of a very aggressive nature. Officers say that it is this rogue elephant that attracts other tuskers to the places in and around the Dhoni forests, causing havoc to farmers. All efforts are being carried out to lure the elephant to a place where they can shoot it with a tranquilizing dart.
Initially, the team planned to tranquilise the large mammal and shift it to Wayanad immediately. Since it was risky, the team decided to shift it to a kraal in Dhoni itself and later to Wayanad once it is tamed. It is believed that PT-7 killed a 60-year-old man in Dhoni who was out on a morning walk in July 2022.
A few days ago, PT-7, along with other tuskers, raided farmlands and broke the compound walls of a few houses. On January 17, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) called for a hartal against the delay in capturing the elephant.
Though the rogue elephant has been destroying farmlands and making people angry, capturing an elephant is the last resort. The forest department usually tries to send rogue tuskers back to the forest, or tame them using Kumki elephants. Nonetheless, elephants continue to loiter outside the forest in farmlands, causing trouble.
PT-7 is probably the most mischievous among the conflict animals to be in the news recently, but there have been a few others too who made headlines for wreaking trouble. Padayappa, another rogue elephant in Munnar with unusually long tusks and a limp, is known for smashing vehicles and pulling down shops. The last reported incident was on January 20 where it smashed two autorickshaws. A case was charged against a person named Antony Das for allegedly provoking Padayappa by honking and making noise with his jeep.
Padayappa has been present in and around Munnar for several years now, performing mischievous activities and sometimes inducing terror. But this hasn't stopped locals from forming a fans association for him, though farmers are not happy about it. There are about 100 members in the fans association, though merchants, farmers, and drivers in the region are critical of the association and have been protesting against the forest department for not taking any action.
A video of Padayappa attacking a Kerala Kerala State Road Transport Corporation bus and breaking its windshield had earlier gone viral on social media. The wild tusker mainly sources its food from wrecking shops and had recently broken into a ration shop and eaten wheat and rice, apart from ransacking other fruit and vegetable shops.
Pandalur Makhna - 2 (PM-2), a tuskless male elephant originally from the Gudalur forests was also recently captured from Sultan Bathery in Wayanad, making news in a similar vein. PM -2 has a long history of troublemaking. Earlier December 2022, it was tranquilised and relocated to Mudumalai Tiger Reserve, after it wrecked around 100 houses and caused two or three deaths in the Gudalur division. Later on January 10 it was darted and shifted to the Muthanga elephant camp. The massive task of capturing PM-2 was carried out by a 150-member team with the help of two kumki elephants. He was called ´Arisi Raja´ by the Gudalur residents.
Apart from these recent incidents of tracking and capturing rogue elephants, the operation to capture Kallur Komban (a tusker from Kallur forests in Wayanad district) in 2016 November had become a matter of huge public intrigue. Nicknamed Bharathan SI by the local residents after a policeman posted in the locality years ago, the tusker had been unleashing havoc in Wayanad by regularly destroying paddy fields. In four years he was captured and relocated twice by forest officials who had been tracking its movements. In the third capture in 2016, it was decided not to send the elephant back to Kallur forests. Later, for two years, he was given training at the Muthanga elephant camp in Wayanad and released to the camp in 2018.
There are many other rogue pachyderms on the list, but these are a few anti-heroes who made headlines in recent times.