| Re: Bangalore Annual Offroading Event January 2012
Dear jeepers,
Yesterday I decided to do part of the annual event trail on foot, drove my armada to the beginning of the tail and started walking, I finished the trail connecting 4th and 1st sector of our circuit from base camp. The time was 12.30, I thought of doing certain trail in the 3rd sector and started through the thick bush jungle, I reached our jeep trail done previously, it was almost 1 o'clock when I noticed some foul or rotten smell coming from left side of the trail, I had gone 5 to 6 ft ahead in the trail and I just retraced few feet back to check the source of the smell, suddenly I saw a huge elephant within 10 feet away charging at me with a loud trumpet, I just ran like mad for about an half a kilometer and when I was sure that nothing is coming behind me I started walking briskly towards the camp site where I had left my vehicle and after reaching the vehicle I went near the lonely house in the forest outskirt and sat there to get my breath back.
Now I was in a dilemma whether to inform the forest officials or just ignore and drive back to Bangalore as I was sure that some thing dead and rotting there and the elephant which charged towards me was a full grown huge female elephant, which makes it obvious that may be source of the smell might be of the dead calf, because of which she is aggressive and trying to chase away whoever is coming in that area or near her.
After a deep thought I decided to ascertain why the elephant behaved like that and also if I can help if she is in distress, once I made the decision I immediately asked the local people about forest guards whereabouts and luckily I got his mobile no. and called him and informed about the situation, location and my explanation, he readily agreed to come to the spot and I told him I will take him to the spot in my jeep and show the location for which he was very happy. Within 45 minutes he came to the place where I was sitting in his two-wheeler, but he had come alone and he told already he has informed all the forest officials about this. I invited that lonely house people also to join me to go and look for the elephant, for which they agreed as they were getting a jeep ride into the forest as well as they were also curious to know what has happened in the forest.
Here there was a resolution to be broken, that is, this time I had decided not to take my armada in to the trail only Willy's will do the recce and trail markings, but for a cause I made all of them get into the vehicle and drove into the forest to where elephant was located. I parked the vehicle 100mts away from the bush where I was chased. We all walked towards the bush making some noise to see whether elephant is still there in the bush, to our surprise we heard bush crashing sound heading towards us, we ran to the vehicle and nearby clear open area. By now it was almost three hours since she had charged me and she has not left the place and moved away that shows some thing is wrong and she is still aggressive, which made the guard call for additional equipped reinforcement to come to the location, luckily they came within ten minutes to the outskirts of the forest and requested me to pick them up from there, which I obliged as there was no other mode of transport and for them to come on foot would have taken lot of time, with nine people including me I hit the trail again and came to the location. This group consisted of Forester and experienced elephant handlers.
Now for the third time we approached the bush with full confidence as we were a gang of almost 20 people. But to our surprise there was no movement or sound from the bushes in spite of making noise and also they started lighting crackers and throwing in the bush to make the elephant come out of the thick impenetrable bush coverage, but to my disappointment nothing happened, then we spread out to look all around the bush area to see whether we can spot the elephant moving away from the bush area, but there was no sign of it anywhere.
We all became silent and started thinking what to do next, in that period of silence we heard slight branch breaking sound in the original bush, suddenly all of got charged up and we knew that some thing is seriously wrong with the elephant since she did not make any attempt to come out of the bush in spite of loud cracker burst and shouting noise. Now main challenge was to see physically what is the problem elephant is having.
After some deliberation we decided that there were two tall trees in the the bush which can be accessed by moving stealthily by trained climbers to locate the elephants position. Four experienced climbers went into the bush area and climbed the tree and it took some time for them to locate the elephant, but unfortunately it was standing still and only they could see the top back part only among the bush, from the tree top they starting yelling at the elephant to see whether that will make her move but she did budge from her position, then they shouted back to us for further instructions, by then we got a call that even RFO is also coming.
Among the group there was an elephant tracker who opted to go into the bush guided by tree mounted personal, he almost went 10 ft distance to the elephant but still he could not make out the problem with the elephant, just then Forester came to me and requested that RFO has come to that lonely house in the outskirts in his Bolero Di turbo, his vehicle can't come into the forest, not only that he is a very hefty person and he is not used to walking. So again I drove my armada out and met the RFO and explained everything to him and hit the trail back into the forest, we came to the bush and stopped the vehicle, he was very happy with my driving and the vehicle. All the forest staff who were spread out came to greet him living the three tree born watchers to mend for themselves.
Each of them told their own version of the situation and the solution, then we shouted at the tree top men to know what is happening, we did not get any reply from them in spite of repeated shouts, we were gathered towards the forest entry side of the bush and the tree was located towards deep jungle direction and we were not in a position to sight them, hence we moved to a place from which we can see the tree, by then almost 5 to 8 minutes had elapsed and when we sighted the tree dwellers, we were in for surprise and joy because the reason for their silence was elephant had started moving below the tree and she had with her just born calf and she was cajoling and guiding the calf towards the deeper forest region, they did not want to reply to our shout because that would have made the elephant aware of the people on the tree and she would not have moved into the safety of the deeper jungle.
Now our mission accomplished by knowing for sure that the smell what I got was elephant placenta smell and both calf and the mother were hale and healthy, although we gave them 6 hours of discomfort to ascertain their well being.
Finally it was time for me to head back to Bangalore, for my last drive I took only four forest official including RFO to drop back near his vehicle at the outskirts. I thanked all the people for their speedy response and timely action.
I drove back to Bangalore with the satisfaction that I did not abandon some living being who might have been in distress or needed medical assistance.
with warm regards,
mpsreeni.
Last edited by benbsb29 : 13th January 2012 at 16:30.
Reason: Edited text to add spacing between paras. :)
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10th January 2012, 14:35
(4)
Thanks
