Jumbo herd mourns calf crushed to death during pond bath, mum pulls its body out

Raipur: A baby elephant was crushed to death under an adult elephant while a herd was bathing in a forest pond in Chhattisgarh’s Raigarh district late Saturday, with grieving elephants guarding the carcass and trumpeting through the night beside the waterbody.The incident occurred near Aamamuda pond in the forested Pushalda village area under Chhal range, where around 70 elephants have been moving in different groups over the past several days.According to forest officials and villagers, a herd had entered the pond around 8 pm to cool off amid the intense summer heat when the calf was accidentally trapped beneath a larger elephant during the commotion in the water.What followed left villagers shaken.Residents said a female elephant — believed to be the calf’s mother — later pulled the carcass out of the pond, after which the herd surrounded it and continued trumpeting near the waterbody throughout the night. It’s usually seen as the way of elephants’ mourning.Even on Sunday morning, the elephants were seen circling around the dead calf, preventing forest and veterinary teams from reaching the spot.Forest department officials, along with veterinarians, rushed to the area after receiving information about the death, but were forced to wait at a distance as the herd refused to move away from the carcass.

Officials said the postmortem and further examination would be conducted only after the elephants retreat deeper into the forest, leaving the carcass behind.The death has once again raised concerns over the rising number of elephant calf fatalities in Raigarh district due to several reasons, but drowning being the most common. With the latest incident, at least eight elephant calves have died across different forest ranges in the district over the past five months.Raigarh remains one of Chhattisgarh’s most sensitive elephant movement corridors, with large herds frequently passing through Dharamjaigarh, Chhal and adjoining forest belts. Forest officials said that they have been closely monitoring elephant movement amid increasing human-elephant interactions and repeated wildlife distress incidents during the peak summer months.