Tusker Arikomban released into interiors of Periyar Tiger Reserve

IDUKKI: A bull elephant notorious for breaking into homes and ration shops to steal rice which earned him the moniker of 'Arikomban', was on Sunday morning released into the deep interiors of Periyar Tiger Reserve, forest officials said.

The tusker has been radio-collared, and signals from it are being received, a forest official told reporters here.

''We are getting signals from the radio collar. His location will be monitored from the tiger reserve. He is very healthy,'' another official said.

The tusker was tranquilised on Saturday evening and transported by truck to the tiger reserve. The operation to dart the elephant began early Saturday morning, and after more than 12 hours it was tranquilised.

Giving details about the operation, which involved a large number of forest personnel and four kumki (trained) elephants, a forest official told reporters here that on the first day of the operation they were ''not lucky''. Luck favoured them on the second day after another tusker, who was a competitor of Arikomban, brought the rice-favouring elephant before the forest officials enabling them to tranquilise it, the official said.

The officials also said that the journey to the tiger reserve from Chinnakanal and Santhanpara areas of this hill district, where Arikomban had caused damage to human settlements, took some time due to the forest roads becoming slushy following rains.

After reaching the deep interiors of the tiger reserve, a ramp was put up beside the truck, the elephant was untied and after it was provided an antidote to the tranquiliser, the tusker got off and walked into the forest, officials involved in the operation said.

They expressed hope that the elephant would not foray into human settlements any longer and added that its movements would be tracked via signals received from the radio collar.

The efforts to tranquilise and remove him from Chinnakanal had gone through several controversies, with animal rights activists opposing the move of the forest department to capture and tame it to make it a Kumki elephant at Kodanad Elephant Training Centre in Ernakulam district.

They petitioned the Kerala High Court, which, after hearing the plea, stopped the department's move. The court, thereafter, appointed an expert committee to study the issue and decide the fate of the tusker, and the panel suggested that the elephant be translocated to a wild area where there would be no chance of conflict with humans.

The committee had suggested shifting the elephant to Parambikulam Tiger Reserve. However, protests against the move led to the Kerala government suggesting an alternative location before the court which asked them to keep it a secret.