Mangaluru: Injured male tusker dies in Karnataka

MANGALURU: An injured male tusker, aged between 17 and 18 years, died at Balugodu village of Subrahmanya range on Wednesday. Providing details about the elephant death, Tyagaraj range forest officer (RFO) Subrahmanya said the wild elephant was found at the Balugodu Reserve Forest with an injury on its left front leg about 20 days ago. It was being monitored closely and was able to walk only up to 2-3 kilometres.
“When the incident was reported, a team of veterinarians from Nagarhole National Park was pressed into action. Once it left, the local team was monitoring the elephant's health. The puss had cleared, but the wound had not yet healed. Locals had come forward to offer fodder, but we had kept a tab on that too," RFO said.
It may be recalled that people from Balugodu heard the loud cries of the tusker during the second week of May. When a search was launched, the tusker was spotted near Koti Jhari stream in the reserve forest area. Following an alert by residents, the forest department team rushed to the spot and since then the department had been monitoring the health of elephant. The tusker is suspected to have injured its leg following a fight with fellow pachyderms.
The post-mortem will be conducted and all government procedures will be followed, the RFO said.