Kaziranga: A four month old elephant calf trapped in a ditch near the Kaziranga National Park was rescued by the WTI team and after treatment reunited with its mother in the wild on October 26.This is the second calf rescued by WTI’s Wild Rescue team in the recent months and successfully rehabilitated with its natal herd. The calf was trapped inside a ditch in Lokhajan Tea Estate, near Bokakhat in the north-east Indian state of Assam.

“The ditch was about five feet deep and had water . The baby must have slipped and fallen in,” Rathin Burman, manager of WTI’s Centre for Wildlife Rehabilitation and Conservation said.

“We first heard about the baby from villagers, who said it was crying. Our team reached there with forest guards. The calf did not seem bothered by the crowd that had gathered there. It took ten people to lift it out,” he added.

The calf seemed to have an old injury on its left hind leg and was limping. “The calf was treated for muscle cramps, wounds over shoulder, infection of umbellicus and dehydration with the help of forest staff and tea garden labour. In the evening the calf was taken to a site where it was suspected to have been left behind by the herd the previous day. Throughout the day we were feeding it with re-hydration salts, but the limping was causing us concern as we were not sure if it would be able to catch up with the herd even if they approached it. Around the evening we heard the herd approaching as the natal herd may temporarily abandon a calf due to local disturbance, but they always come back. When the herd was about 200 meters away we tied the calf with a loose knot to a tree and retreated. As soon as the calf was left alone it started crying and the herd responded. We checked the site an hour later and the calf was not there. We went back tired but happy that the baby was with its mother,” Dr Bhaskar Chaudhury, the CWRC veterinarian said.

But the very next morning the villagers came back to say that the same calf had fallen into another ditch. “We rushed back again and found the fellow in another ditch. The same strategy was applied and the mother took back the calf again in the night,” Burman said.

The calf was last seen happily playing around its mother by the villagers of Lokhajan yesterday.