She has been swimming in one of the wetlands in the area since 11:00am, with only her trunk above the water, reports Bangla daily Prothom Alo today.
“We’re trying to bring her back to the shore to continue her treatment,” Tapon Kumar Dey, chief executive director of Nature Conservation Society told the Bangla daily.
A 17-member rescue team of Bangladesh Forest Department, led by Tapon, adorned the mighty creature with the name Bangabahadur yesterday for its perilous journey across nearly 1,000 kilometres of submerged areas after it entered Bangladesh from India.
A joint rescue team comprising of forest and veterinary officials from Bangladesh and India started the rescue operation on August 4, but they did not succeed until Thursday as they could not find a suitable place to tranquillise the animal. The three-member rescue team from Assam forest department left Dhaka on August 9.
On Thursday, August 11, veterinary surgeon of the Bangladesh forest rescue team Dr Syed tranquilised the elephant.
On Thursday evening, tranquilised Bangabahadur regained consciousness and was given a dose of glucose shot along with other food.
Yesterday morning the untamed wild animal became agitated seeing a crowd of onlookers. She tore off the ropes and took a dip in a pond nearby. She later came back to her resting place and the members of the rescue team managed to tie her up again.
“We are planning to engage a team of five elephant keepers (mahut) to tame the wild elephant,” Tapon said.
Once tamed, the elephant will be loaded onto a truck and transported to Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Safari Park in Gazipur, he added.
Bangabahadur got separated from her herd in Assam of India and on June 27 she entered Bangladesh through Chilmari of Kurigram, floating with currents of the Brahmaputra River.
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