Tusker radio-collared in Baksa to assess migratory pattern

Guwahati, Nov 20: A tusker from a herd of around 50 elephants was radio-collared in Baksa district on November 18 as part of an initiative led by the State Forest department, and Baksa Forest division, under Bodoland Territorial Region (BTR) of Assam with active support from district administration and police.

The elephant was tranquilized by a team of expert veterinarians with the help of forest officials and biologists under the leadership of Field Director of Manas Tiger Reserve Dr C Ramesh and supervision of Golap Baniya, DFO, Baksa Forest Division at Jartaluk area of the district. The elephant later joined its herd.

“The basic objective of radio collaring of wild elephants is to determine the elephant occupancy within an area or range. This helps us to work for better management of human-elephant conflict and facilitate elephant conservation,” said Kaushik Barua, who was at the forefront of the radio-collaring operation.

“The team for capturing and radio-collaring of the elephant also consisted of wildlife biologists, researchers, Green Globe, WWF India and local stakeholders. GPS-based satellite-radio telemetry collar which was fitted to the elephant will help to assess the migratory pattern, and vegetative preferences of the wild elephants and the herd it belongs to. The locations provided by the collar will also act as an early alert system to help in better management of human-elephant conflict in the landscape,” said the Divisional Forest Officer of Baksa Forest Division Golap Baniya.

A team of Aaranyak biologists comprising Hiten Kumar Baishya, Abhijit Boruah, Anushka Saikia and Dibakar Nayak have monitored the elephant for the last two months to make the radio collaring successful.

The operation which was supported by the SBI Foundation and Prof. Curtis Griffin of the University of Massachusetts, USA, was facilitated by Aaranyak.

 -By Staff Reporter