“The elephants have come” “Two calves are here” “One tusker”! These were the words spreading everywhere in the Coffee Plantation for the past two months but not one person got to see these magnificent and much elusive elephants. This led me to the quest of understanding the herd in this plantation and their movement patterns to get a chance to look at them.
For the past two months, during my free time, I have been trying to follow the trial made by the elephants, and understand their movements in the coffee plantation. Only thrice did I get to feel the elephant’s presence close by. Every day the trail leads me closer and closer, with sightings of broken branches, fresh marks, fresh dung and finally the wild smell of the elephants. In the past two months, I have had three encounters! The first one was two weeks back, when I was walking along the trail towards the pond. The elephants let me know of its presence by warning me with its loud trumpet call, breaking the branches and then into silence. This is the path which the elephant uses every day to cross from coffee plantations towards the paddy field where they go and destroy the crops.
Secondly, I had an encounter with the tusker. This happened while I walking on another trail which also led towards the pond, but this trail was closer to a forest cover. I went along with a local guide, walking silently and following the trail. This led us straight to the fresh foot marks of the elephants. Skeptical about whether to move closer or not, we looked around for a few minutes and decided to leave in a different trail. We started walking slowly through the knee high dry grass and suddenly we heard loud noise of branches breaking and heading right towards us! The elephant had got our scent and broke the branches of the forest bushes and was staring right at us. This brought our heart to our mouths and we started to run (about 50 meters), after which I stopped to see if the elephant was still following. There she was, covered with mud, wild eyes staring right at me, asking to stay away from the herd. She then charged again and we started running for our life for the next 300 meters and then stopped when we were sure of our safety. Indeed they are wild elephants.
The third encounter was again a trumpet warning us while we were following the elephant trail towards the pond. The elephants moved around the bushes with very less noise and stood still for a long time as if they got a human scent. It is amazing to watch the giants trying to adapt in a place surrounded with people, but still the conflict rate here is unknown to the country as the herd is shy and just wants food and water. But since the herd is very close to the coffee plantation, the planters call the forest officials to get rid of them.
Observing these magnificent and wild elephants here on the route which they used, and how the forest officials ensure that the elephants leave and do not return back, has led to the following questions in my mind: Does modifying the route path of elephants deter them from entering the plantation? Why do the elephants come to the plantation if the food source is abundant in the forest? What has led to this situation? I will keep you guys updated if I find my answers, and meanwhile, if you guys are going to coffee board sub-station Chettalli, do visit these wild elephants and say a hi from me J.
