A fully grown male elephant, separated from the three-headed “bachelorette party” last month, created a flutter and raid mango orchards and vegetable plantations in several villages along the Chennai National Highway in Narayanavanam Mandal, 50 miles from here.
According to information, the lone elephant currently traveling between the village of Govindappa Naidu Kandriga and the Kailasanatha Kona waterfalls is visiting the mango orchards. From Friday evening until the early hours of Saturday morning, the pachyderm had a free run in the fields and reportedly tried to attack a farmer who had luckily escaped.
The villagers say the presence of a wild elephant in the Narayanavanam mandal was strange as the poor forest cover of the area would not support the food for the animal.
They said that after a three-headed herd of wild Tamil Nadu elephants marched into the plains four months ago, forest officials had not taken any concrete steps to return the animals to their original Tamil Nadu habitat. They said the forest staff had found no permanent solution to the threat other than temporarily moving the animals to the hills with poor vegetation.
“Due to the ongoing COVID lockdown, there is very little public movement in the region. Once the lockdown is over, the lone elephant’s presence would certainly become a bigger problem, ”said a forest watcher.