Elephant that killed 16 villagers reunited with herd

Patna: A young elephant that killed 16 people in the past two months has been reunited with the herd in Jharkhand.

“We were constantly on the move, keeping track of the tusker and alerting the villagers about its unruly behaviour. We have information the separated elephant has got united with the herd,” local divisional forest officer Satish Chandra Rai said over the phone from Dhanbad town on Thursday.

“Yet, we are keeping a close watch on his behaviour to see how the herd reacts,” he added. Currently, the herd has been spotted in Giridih forests, he informed.

Forest department officials said the mature male, around 16 years old, had been on the rampage ever since it got separated from the herd of 22 elephants in the forests of Dhanabad district in May this year. Subsequently, it went from one district to another, and trampled to death as many as 16 villagers in six districts after covering a distance of 500km.

Several teams of forest staff were tracking the elephant and alerted the villagers not to come in its path . The villagers didn’t take heed and tried to capture the animal which led to its violent behaviour , In villages close to forest, people chase away elephants with the help of traditional weapons, like spears and bamboo sticks.

Another forest official told local media the elephant might have been expelled from the herd for its “bad behaviour”. “So we are studying his behaviour and monitoring his activities closely. We want to see if he is accepted back into the herd,” he added.

The elephant had demonstrated his extreme behaviour in Jamtara district when he lifted an elderly couple with his trunk and killed them while they ventured out before dawn. The incident took place in the last week of June.

A similar story was reported from Jharkhand two years back when a young elephant killed 20 villagers after getting separated from the herd. The forest department team tried hard to tranquillise the elephant but did not succeed. Eventually, the elephant had to be put down.

Man-animal conflicts have left 74 people dead and 134 injured each year on an average with over 90 per cent of such incidents involving elephants in Jharkhand. Between 2016 to 2020, 301 people and 80 elephants have died.