Bold efforts bring confused pachyderm under control

By Manjula Fernando

The teenager elephant was lost in an unknown land. He ran amok in search of a trace of familiarity. But the plump little giant, neither a kid nor an adult, was fighting being confusion.

The smell, sounds and the visions were all too strange for him. He had wondered too far from his territory the previous night.

"It was not an easy operation," Dr. Chandana Jayasinghe, the Veterinary doctor attached to North Western/Anuradhapura Wildlife Zone told Sunday Observer explaining the incident of the young elephant that caused mayhem in Anuradhapura sacred City on Wednesday.

The lost adolescent claimed two lives at Mihindupura within the Sacred City, a Civil Defence Force Officer and an elderly ritual performer at the Sri Maha Bodhi as it dashed through the Sacred City, in a state of bewilderment.

Dr. Jayasinghe said the elephant seem to have come from Ulukkulama forest at Anuradhapura range, passing the jungle stretch via Basawakkulawa tank. Inspections along the trail where he reached the Sacred City had indicated that the elephant had been with two more adult males and they had wandered back to the forest while this one for some reason had come the wrong direction, towards the city.

"We had to direct him to a less crowded place to use the tranquilizer gun. That was proved to be a major operation because the elephant was in a state of bewilderment by the sounds of honking vehicles and screaming people." The elephant aged between 15 to 18 years, was ready to attack anything in the vicinity. The animal rescue or rather the human rescue operation lasted for over six hours.

Getting the elephant to cross the stream

After being tranquilised

Officers struggling to get the bull on to the truck

After a good chase that lasted several hours, the wildlife team managed to change the elephants' course and turn the 'strongman' towards the forest, near the Anuradhapura Central College.

"Our main objective was to stop him before he caused more damage to the others and itself."

The Victims Gunadasa and Sandarana

Wildlife Officer Dahanayake got on to a Kumbuk tree near the Malwathu Oya to dart the animal and disable it while Ranger Vijitha was on stand by. The officers armed with tranquiliser guns and heavy ropes swam across the oya which was on the brink of overflow due to the heavy rain the previous days.

The young pachyderm was chased. off and trapped between a small stretch of land between Malwathu Oya and a paddy field. Over ten wildlife officers and more than two dozen villagers were involved in the operation.

Asked if they could not have chased the elephant back to the wilderness without tranquilising and taking the trouble to capture it and transport it to a different forest, Dr. Jayasinghe said the elephant would have caused a lot of damage before doing that.

It was running amonk at lightening speed. "You see him gone and in a split second emerging from nowhere."

There were five schools in close proximity and once the confused animal ran across a nursery school which had its children sent from the ground floor to the upper floor in preparation for the melee.

"Besides the elephants have a habit of roaming back to where they have come before, so we did not want to take a chance," he added.

After the giant was tranquilised, next came the greatest task, to transport him to a near by national park. A lorry could not reach where the animal laid because of the gushing stream.

The Veterinary Doctor in charge of Lunugam Vehera Zone joined in the next operation to hurdle the giant onto a lorry to be transported. Nearly 20-25 rangers were called in for the job next day.

"We had to wait till the elephant gained conciousness since it had to be taken back across the Malwathu Oya to the other bank to get him onto the lorry. There was a chance of drowning if we did it under sedation. Since the animal was acting rather rough, it was partially sedated and then allowed to swim across while the officers held on to ropes that tied its legs.

Finally the unruly giant was loaded on to the lorry and taken back to the wilderness. Assistant Director Wild Life Conservation (North Central) W.S.Weragama said similar elephant attacks were reported in the sacred city twice in the recent past. In one occasion an elderly man was attacked and killed.

He said the elephant may have turned violent due to human actions or because of being in a strange place adding that its behaviour could also be attributed to his age. The operation was conducted under the direction of Wildlife Conservation Department Director General H.D.Ratnayake.