Jackal on beach visit, sent to Guindy home

Clement Edison, a forester, said that they first got a call regarding a jackal on the loose on Wednesday morning. “Kanakarajan, the SI of Adyar Police Station called us at 10.40 am and we rushed to the spot with an eight-member team.

The five-year-old female jackal had come from the Theosophical Society or the government quarters. It had entered the Odai Kuppam slum behind the Besant Nagar church. 

We found it at the entrance of one of the homes,” said the official. The sight of a jackal immediately sent residents into panic mode. “However, once we arrived, they calmed down a bit. 

The ground floor house was locked but there were people living in the first floor. We opened the locked house and tried luring the jackal inside, but with little success. Seeing us at work, the residents too tried to catch the jackal bare-handed but we strictly warned them not to do so as it could be dangerous. 

After chasing it for two hours, three of our officials finally managed to catch the animal and put it in a cage. The residents cheered loudly once the jackal was safely in the cage,” said Edison. The jackal was released in the Guindy National Park. A few months ago, an adult male jackal had entered a car showroom in Velachery. Edison attributed the increasing instances of animals straying into main residential areas due to loss of habitat. 

“The forest cover is diminishing and the animals increasingly find themselves on main roads or residences. Maybe the jackal had set out in search of food? The weather was also cool but we don’t really know what drew this young jackal into the Besant Nagar slum,” concluded this forester.