On Saturday, April 29, almost all television channels in Kerala hosted the day-long, live coverage of the capturing of the wild elephant Arikomban. It has been almost a year since the rogue tusker began making headlines. After several hours of the intense operation carried out by around 150 officials and four kumki elephants, Arikomban was captured on Saturday evening and translocated from Chinnakanal in Idukki district to Periyar Tiger Reserve (PTR) in the district’s Kumily. There was a curfew in Kumily on Saturday in connection with the same.
The efforts to locate and capture the elephant had failed on Friday. But the team resumed work in the wee hours on Saturday. Close to noon, the officials led by a team of veterinarians successfully fired the first tranquiliser. Later, six more tranquiliser shots were fired.
By 5.00 pm, the team of officials and the four kumki elephants successfully managed to push Arikomban onto an 'elephant ambulance', fixed on a lorry using huge wooden poles. Then started the next phase of the operation when two staff members climbed on top of the elephant and fixed a radio collar that was brought from Assam, weighing around 8 kg.
Chief Conservator of Forests RS Arun informed the media that the Forest Department has received a signal from the radio collar on the tusker after the translocation to the PTR. He said that they were monitoring the position of the animal.
The relocation of the tusker was finally decided upon after a legal battle. The government had initially planned to capture Arikomban and train the animal to be a kumki elephant. Considering the plea by animal rights activists, the Kerala High Court on March 29, objected to the state government's plan to capture and rehabilitate the elephant. Instead, the court said that the tusker may be tranquilised if it enters human settlements as a temporary measure, and ordered the fastening of a radio collar to track its movements.
It also directed that a five-member committee of experts be constituted to advise the court on solutions other than capturing the elephant. Later, the expert committee advised the court to translocate the animal. Initially, it was decided to move the tusker to Parambikulam Tiger Reserve in Palakkad district. But that invited huge flak from local residents and tribals there.
The Supreme Court on April 17 also declined to entertain a Kerala government plea challenging the High Court order asking it to translocate Arikomban to Parambikulam. Later, it was decided by the Forest Department to translocate the elephant to Periyar.
From Saturday morning, all the Malayalam news channels were on live from Chinnakkanal, probably the first time that an elephant capture received such extensive coverage.
With IANS inputs