Summary:
“We are now creating artificial waterholes to prevent elephants from entering the main canal area.”He said in a similar incident a four-month-old elephant calf was trapped in the main canal on Saturday evening as well. COIMBATORE: An elephant calf aged just seven months was trapped in the main canal of Varattupallam dam, where it came with the mother elephant to drink water, at 6.30am on Sunday.On seeing the calf helpless, farmers alerted Anthiyur forest range officer P Balakrishnan , who reached the spot along with his team. “The calf entered the canal with its mother but couldn’t come out even with the latter’s help. We then helped the calf out of the canal and reunite with its mother.” When they tried to rescue the calf, the mother elephant chased them away.Following this, foresters chased away the mother elephant by bursting firecrackers and brought an earth mover to cut a pathway to help the calf come out of the canal.As soon as it came out of the canal, the calf reunited with its mother, which was waiting on the forest boundary.Pointing out that almost all the waterbodies in the Anthiyur forest range in Erode forest division had dried up, the forest range officer said wild elephants entering the canal to quench thirst was a common sight nowadays..