Baby elephant ‘Durga’ to be Dudhwa mascot
The baby elephant responded to the formula milk for human infants, which contains less fat than elephant milk.
The Uttarakhand Forest Department staff were successful in reuniting a new born calf with mother elephant by conducting a special operation in Kotdwar on Thursday. The 26-hour-long exercise included tracing the real mother, who was trapped in a trench and digging pavement for creating a rescue path to help her reunite with lost baby.
The elephant was grazing in the forest with her baby, but the mother accidentally fell into a narrow channel to get suck there. The calf moved away from the accident spot and was roaming in the jungle alone. The Kotdwar forest range staff of Lansdowne Forest Division spotted the calf near the Gowai river on Wednesday evening.
Many elephants herds passed thought the new born elephant of about 10-11 days, but the calf joined none to create a puzzle for the forest staff.
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The special operation began with the exercise to trace the real mother. Finally, the trapped elephant was discovered in a remote corner of forest. Taking the risk, the forest staff created a channel to help the elephant to come out of the trench. But, to the surprise of the staff, the elephant ran away and disappeared in the forest.
Kotdwar forest division’s range officer, Satya Prakash Kandwal, said, “The mother was traced again after rescue work and the calf was taken near the elephant. As the mother saw her new born she started licking her darling.”
As on 15 February polling for the state assembly election was taking place and most of the forest staff were on duty, no major relief work was executed that day. The limited staff available in the range office had to spend their night in the forest, guarding the baby elephant and feeding milk to the little jumbo. On Thursday the special operation started early morning to conclude by 5.30 pm.
Divisional Forest Officer Mayank Shekhar said, “We are doing the monitoring of the calf and even today we found the mother & baby together.”
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