Drone tracks Assam's 'rogue' elephant in musth

Drone cameras helped Assam forest personnel on Friday to track a "rogue" elephant inside thick jungles, which remained elusive for 48 hours after killing five persons.

After three attempts, the feed received through drone camera helped identify the elephant at 4 pm inside Chatabari reserve forest in western Assam's Goalpara district. The drone was borrowed from Kaziranga National Park, situated about 400-km east.

Forest officials said the male elephant could be in a state of musth caused by a sudden rise in reproductive hormones when an elephant turns very aggressive and often resorts to the destruction of forests, cropland or target human settlement. All five persons, including an 11-year-old boy, who became its target lived in the same locality in Matia area in Goalpara district.

The district shares a contiguous forest with Garo hills in Meghalaya and movement of elephants is common.

The forest staffs have requisitioned two kunkis (trained elephants) from Manas National Park situated in western Assam and launched an operation to tranquillise the rogue elephant. Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal had instructed the department to take immediate steps to tranquillise the elephant as panic gripped the villagers there.

According to Sailendra Pandey, public relations officer of Assam forest minister Pariman Suklabaidya, the drone was used for the first time in the state to track a wild elephant. "The use of drone not only increases the chances of detecting an animal from the air but also significantly reduces the danger of following an aggressive animal on foot," he said.

The man-elephant conflict has increased in Assam over the years and according to information furnished by the state government in the Assembly in February this year, 761 people died in jumbo attacks since 2010 while 249 elephants also died during the same period.

According to the Elephant Census 2017, of the 27, 312 elephants counted in 23 states, Northeast and North Bengal were found having 10,139 jumbos. Assam's jumbo population was found to be at 5,719. Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh were found having 1,754 and 1,614 elephants respectively.