Radio collaring of wild elephants begins in Odisha

Bhubaneswar: The Odisha Forest department has successfully fitted a radio collar on a wild elephant in Angul district, which will help track and monitor the movement of the elephant, a senior official said.

A male elephant with injury was found in Chhendipada Jungle (Sapiosahi) of Chhendipada range in Angul forest division. It was on observation since February 14 and treated successfully by veterinarians, he said.

On Wednesday, the elephant was tranquillized and a radio collar was fitted to the animal before its release in the forest, said Susanta Nanda, principal chief conservator of forests (PCCF) wildlife on Thursday.

It will help track and monitor the movement of the elephant for its post-treatment observation as well as to monitor the behaviour of the tusker, he said.

According to forest officials, the move will also help track the elephant in areas with human-elephant conflict, so that timely action can be taken to prevent any such conflict. Further, the injured elephant, which would have been vulnerable to poaching will now be easier to track its movement to prevent any untoward event.

The trainees at Angul Rangers College will be exposed to the tracking for future management in the field, they said.

After this path-breaking experiment in Angul, it is proposed to use this method in tracking problematic elephant herds at other places in Odisha by putting radio collars.

"We are planning to fit a radio collar on the elephants in the Chandaka wildlife sanctuary. After radio collaring, the field officials can easily track the movements of the elephants through their mobile phones", Nanda said. According to official sources, tagging the radio collar on the wild elephants has been a success in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu and it has yielded desired results.