Who says only dogs and cats find their way home? Two tuskers, captured and relocated to the Kollegal forests along the Karnataka-Tamil Nadu border returned to their old stomping grounds after two years, travelling for six months through the backwoods until they got to the Savanadurga forests.
That’s a distance of 250 km by road and a forest track of about 150 km!
One, captured outside Arsikere town in Dec. 2010 and moved to the Satyamangalam forests had been radio-collared and dropped in Kollegal. The other, captured inside Savandurga forest was translocated to Kollegal at about the same time.
Assistant Conservator of Forests, Kanakpura Division, V. Satyanarayana says, “From Kollegal the elephants came through Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary, Kanakpura forests along the river Cauvery to Bannerghatta and then to Savandurga, through Tataguni Estate and Manchanbele Dam in Magadi Taluk of Ramanagara district.”