Jumbo refuses to let her dead calves go

The incident occurred at Vatepur of Alur taluk in Hassan district in the wee hours on Thursday.

The two calves, a one-and-a-half-year-old male calf and a five-month-old female, were moving with their herd, when they reportedly died from electrocution. Villagers informed the forest department when they spotted the mother elephant in the paddy field belonging to a farmer, Poovaiah.

The mother elephant stood protecting the dead calves and did not allow anybody to approach the carcasses. Though the mother left the place when the forest staff burst crackers, it returned after it saw an earthmover coming closer to the carcasses and pushed it away. The officials are planning to wait till Friday morning for the elephant to leave the place.

There is actually no electric fencing around the place where the carcasses were found. However, villagers told Deccan Herald that there was a grounding problem in the motor of one of the pumpsets in the field, which might have led to the electrocution of the calves.

“Though it looks like the calves were electrocuted, only post-mortem reports can establish the cause of the deaths,” said forest officer Ambaadi Madhav.  

Principal Chief Conservator of Forests and Chief Wildlife Warden, BK Singh, said that since post-mortem had not been conducted, an FIR was filed.

Alur farmers have lost their crops to elephants entering their fields in recent times. Some farmers have also lost their lives in elephant attacks.