Trending: Ailing Elephant Reunited With Its Calf In This Emotional Video

In yet another remarkable feat, the Tamil Nadu forest department was successful in treating an ailing elephant and her calves. The elephants were separated from their herd. Now, IAS officer Supriya Sahu has given a big shout-out to the officials of the forest department for this big achievement. The IAS officer, who is also the Additional Chief Secretary in the Department of Environment, Climate Change, and Forests, shared a detailed post on X (formerly Twitter). Posting two different clips of calf rescue , Supriya Sahu wrote, “It is a long message but worth reading if you believe in ‘Where there is a will, there is a way’. This is also a true story of struggles of life in the wild and triumph over sadness.”

She added, “On the evening of 3rd March in Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve near Bannari, an ailing female elephant with two of her babies including a sub-adult male elephant and a very young female baby elephant was found to be lying in a distressed condition by the Tamil Nadu foresters. The moment we got to know about this a team of expert veterinarians was pressed into service.” Soon enough the experts found out that the ailing mother was too weak to be separated and moved away from her native herd. She wrote, “Her two babies were traumatised and started running uncontrollably in panic. The team immediately guided the young sub-adult elephant back to the herd and quickly attended to the ailing female and the baby elephant.”

Next, the officials of the Tamil Nadu Forest Department accomplished the “calf rescue situations”, as per the SOP Guidelines. They made sure that the calf was well hydrated, and secured in a safe, stress-free environment with minimal human intervention.” Witnessing the situation, the veterinary team concluded “that there was almost nil chance of survival of the mother elephant.” Therefore, they organised a team, comprising experienced frontline staff, veterinarians, mahouts, and teams from Annamalai and Mudumalai on March 4 to reunite the calf with its herd. In a bid to fulfil the reunion efforts, the officials used drones and night vision cameras to identify the native herd for the calf. After bringing it safely in a department vehicle, “the calf was reunited with another elderly female of the herd.”

Supriya Sahu added, “As expected, the female and the rest of the herd took the baby elephant under their wings lovingly. The reuniting team visited the field to monitor the progress and was rewarded with a wonderful sight of the baby elephant alongside the female crossing the road with the herd at 9:30 am on the 5th morning.”

The IAS officer concluded by saying that this was the first successful calf relocation attempt made by the Tamil Nadu forest department in the Sathyamangalam landscape.