Dasara jumbos, Arjuna, Bhima on special ops in C’magaluru to tackle lone tusker

Shyam Sundar Vattam |NT

Two star Dasara elephants, the golden howdah carrying Arjuna and Bhima have gone to Chikkamagaluru City on a special assignment. The Forest Department plans to use them to rein in marauding wild tuskers that have become a terror in the region because of their rampant attacks on estate workers and villagers in the last two to three months.

Arjuna is being extensively used to catch wild jumbos and tigers. His temperament and art of taming wild pachyderms have come in handy for the department to end the menace of wild jumbos and big cats. After Dasara, both Arjuna and Bhima spend time in Nagarhole Elephant Camp and are taken out of the camp only for special operations. Now, both of them have been temporarily shifted to Chikkamagaluru to help the department nab the marauding elephants which are on a killing spree besides damaging crops in Bikanahalli and Hampapura villages in Chikkamagaluru in the last two to three months.

According to information available, a lone tusker has been giving trouble to villagers in Bikanahalli in the last two months which had forced farmers to stop going to the fields. A few estate owners used the DJ system to scare the jumbos. Initially it worked but after sometime they got used to it. Recently, a woman who was plucking black pepper from a coffee estate near Alur village was trampled to death and another person was seriously injured.

The anti-jumbo operation is being conducted under the guidance of the Divisional Forest Officer with 60 forest personnel participating. Bikanahalil is frequented by elephants as people grow coffee, pepper and paddy. Every year, 50 per cent of crops are eaten by the wild jumbos.