Watch: Injured wild elephant with a coconut-size hole on its forehead tranquilized for treatment in Kerala
The tusker, estimated to be in its early 30s, was tranquillized in the Athirappally forest in Thrissur district on Wednesday, weeks after it was first seen in the wild with a possible life-threatening injury.
The Kerala Forest Department has successfully initiated the treatment and rehabilitation process of a wild elephant spotted with a serious injury on its forehead. The tusker, estimated to be in its early 30s, was tranquillized in the Athirappilly forest in Thrissur district on Wednesday, weeks after it was first seen in the wild with a possible life-threatening injury.
CREDIT: BCCL
Wild elephant seen with injury since January
The elephant is believed to have been injured in a fight with another tusker and was left with a large hole in its forehead. Though initially the elephant appeared healthy and moving normally, as the injury spread and became infested with maggots, the tusker's health began failing.
Soon, videos flooded social media showing the elephant struggling and attempting to cover the injury with dust, resulting in calls for it to be rescued.
Mission Athirappilly
Following this, the Kerala Forest Department initiated a mission to capture the injured elephant, involving hundreds of its personnel and two trained Kumki elephants.
CREDIT: BCCL
The injured elephant was darted by Chief Veterinary Officer Arun Zachariah on Wednesday, and with the help of the Kumki elephants, it was loaded onto a truck. The injured jumbo has been shifted to the Kodanad elephant shelter, where it will undergo treatment, which the doctors say could take a month or more.
Doctors confidant of full recovery
Despite the serious nature of the injury, doctors said that the infection had not reached the elephant's brain, and they have expressed confidence that the animal would make a full recovery.
According to doctors, initial treatments, including cleaning the wound and removal of the maggots, were done before it was loaded onto the elephant ambulance.
Kerala is home to the third-largest population of wild elephants in India, after neighbouring Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. It is not uncommon for wild elephants, especially tuskers to get injured during fights with other bulls.
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Bobins Abraham is the Assistant News Editor at Indiatimes. He has more than twelve years of experience in TV and digital journalism. An avid student of history and geopolitics, he is a conservationist and environmentalist at heart. He writes on environment, sustainability, human-animal conflict and more.
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