OOTY: Two kumki elephants from Mudumalai Tiger Reserve (MTR) showcased their prowess in an operation related to capturing of a stray rogue wild jumbo in Kerala along Nilgiris border.

On request from the Kerala foresters, the MTR administration had sent two of its experienced kumki jumbos, namely, Mudumalai and Vijay, along with the veterinary team of the MTR to Kerala on Monday morning to assist the Kerala foresters in capturing a rouge male wild jumbo at Muthanga area in Kerala along the Nilgiris border.

The MTR kumki jumbos played a vital role in capturing the near 20-year-old
rogue jumbo in an early morning operation on Tuesday, sources said on Wednesday.

Stating that Mudumalai and Vijay exhibited their skills in kumki works during the operation, Dr E. Vijayaraghavan, the forest veterinary surgeon at MTR said that these two kumki jumbos were conjoined with one other kumki of the Kerala Forest department.

The operation began around 5 am on Tuesday morning, when the rouge jumbo was spotted near a jungle along a highway in Muthanga.

The veterinary teams successfully tranquilised the stray jumbo. After that, its limbs were suitably tied with rope to move it to the truck standing nearby to shift it to the nearby camp, he noted. When the rogue jumbo offered stiff resistance when it was being moved, the kumki jumbos assisted the forest team in pushing and pulling the captured wild jumbo.

While Mudumalai and other Kerala kumki turned tiresome after sometime, it was Vijay, which endured the hardship and showed all its skills in kumki activity to push and guide the captured jumbo to the truck and after that guiding it to the ‘kraal’. “The operation continued till 11 am. The two kumki jumbos from MTR
returned to the elephant camp at MTR on Tuesday night,” he added. EOM.