C’garh: In 7-yr journey, elephant herd reaches Maha from C’garh

It took almost seven years for an elephant herd to travel from Barnawapara wildlife sanctuary in East Chhattisgarh to Gadchiroli in Maharashtra after traversing around 225 km in the forests.

A four-member elephant herd had landed in Barnawapara wildlife sanctuary from western Odisha in 2014 and the herd’s strength had grown to 22 when four more elephant herds joined them in a span of a few weeks, a senior forest officer, who was the chief conservator of forest of the wildlife sanctuary then, said on Monday.

“The wildlife sanctuary was an abode for the 22member elephant herd for around two years. The herd started moving out of the sanctuary

A FOUR-MEMBER elephant herd had landed in Barnawapara wildlife sanctuary from western Odisha in 2014 and the herd’s strength had grown to 22 when four more elephant herds joined them in a span of a few weeks, a senior forest officer, who was the chief conservator of forest of the wildlife sanctuary then, said

after two years when the local forest dwellers bothered them frequently,” retired CCF K.K. Bisen told this newspaper.

The herd led by female elephant ‘Chanda’ took the forested routes of Gariaband, Dhamtari, Kanker, Bhanupratappur, Durg, and Rajnandgaon in Chhattisgarh before entering Gadchiroli in the last week of October this year, he said.

According to him, the strength of the herd has now reduced to 21 and 18 members of the herd have already entered Gadchiroli forest. The remaining three elephants are on their way to Gadchiroli.

According to him, Gadchiroli has received such a large herd of elephants for the first time after a long time and hence the development has brought cheers to the local forest officers.

The local forest officers have undertaken measures for creating suitable habitat for the herd in the area, Mr Bisen said.

The forest in Gadchiroli is dense and known to be a pristine one. It will be a suitable habitat for elephants for a long period because of availability of abundant food and water in the forest, he said.