Institute for Natural Resources Conservation, Education, Research and Training, (INCERT), Bangalore was founded in the year 2000 by Dr Yellappa Reddy, whose is now the chairman of Bangalore Environment Trust (BET). The leading researcher S. Sridhar is also a trustee of BET. A small note on the DR Yellappa Reddy and S. Sridhar are at the bottom of the post
INCERT has been studying the man-elephant confrontation in and around Bannerghatta national Park since the mid-nineties. INCERT’s Investigative report is reproduced here with the permission of the author.
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INCERT Report dated Monday the 1st July 2002,
by S. Sridhar, S. Shreyas and N. Manjunath
Further to INCERT Field Report dated 29th June 2002, We regret to announce the tragic death of an innocent wild tusker in an operation to capture and translocate wild elephants from the Bannerghatta National Park, on Sunday the 30th June 2002
The Mistaken Identity
The officials were targeting a tusker, which had allegedly killed two people in recent weeks, near the Talghattapura, on the outskirts of the Bannerghatta National Park. On Saturday, three separate groups of forest watchers were sent to different parts of the park to locate the rogue elephant and this individual was noticed among a herd of four elephants, near the Soppinakunte area. On Sunday morning, a herd of three elephants were noticed at the Mettubande area of the Park, by the darting team. The group that was familiar with the rogue elephant was not in the vicinity, therefore they asked over the wireless set to give the description of the rogue elephant. Based on the description given over the wireless set, the tranquilizing party darted the innocent elephant which they thought fitted the description of the rogue elephant, and the rest is a history.
How did the elephant die?
The seven tamed elephants viz Arjuna, Abimanyu, Sri Rama, Harsha, New Tusker, Gayathri, and
