Translocated wild elephant Chinna Thambi continued its “tour” on Friday and travelled more than 40 km from the place where it halted on Thursday. So far, the elephant has traversed more than 80 km in the two days from Varagaliar near Top Slip where it was released on January 26.

The radio-collared elephant passed through at least four villages of Udumalpet before seeking shelter in a sugarcane field at Ammapatti on Friday evening.

The Forest Department halted efforts to drive the elephant into forest after dusk. According to department officials, the elephant left Gopalsamy Hills, where it had halted on Thursday evening, around 9 p.m. and moved towards villages.

The tusker first entered Nalamoolai Sungam village near Udumalpet in the early hours of Friday. A department team from Pollachi Forest Division was monitoring the movement of the elephant, along with a team sent from Thadagam, from where the elephant was translocated to Varagaliar.

As the elephant moved towards Udumalpet, the department team from Pollachi kept its counterpart in Tirupur informed of it.

The elephant then passed Erisanampatti village and then halted at a coconut grove at Deepalapatti around 9 a.m. The department team chose not to drive out the animal as residential areas were close by. The elephant then moved to a sugarcane field at Ammapatti in the evening.

On Wednesday night and Thursday, the elephant had travelled more than 40 km from Varagaliar to reach Gopalsamy hills.

As rumours spread that the Forest Department might tranquillise the elephant and put in a kraal (wooden enclosure for taming), V. Ganesan, Field Director of Anamalai Tiger Reserve, said no such decision was made by the higher-ups.

According to Ajay Desai, a consultant to the WWF and member of Asian elephants specialist group of International Union for Conservation of Nature, the elephant was fully habituated to raiding crops due to which it chose to enter villages than staying in a healthy forest it was translocated to.

“Now all that the Forest Department can do is try chasing it back to the forest for a few more days. If the elephant repeats the behaviour, the department will be forced to keep it in captivity,” Mr. Desai said.