Forest Department personnel had to struggle for nearly five hours on Friday night and in the early hours of Saturday to chase a wild elephant away from getting closer to the rejuvenation camp for temple elephants at Thekkampatti near Mettupalayam.
This is the second such instance since the camp began in the first week of January. Around 9 p.m. on Friday, forest personnel sighted a herd of eight elephants on the elephant corridor in Nellimalai Reserve Forest.
They came from Kittampalayam and were headed to the forest area near the camp. Forest personnel chased seven of them back into the forest.
The male elephant, which was in musth, got separated from the herd and tried to enter the camp.
The tusker went around the camp for a few hours as it was stranded between the flooded Bhavani and the wired fence on the other side. Mahouts in the camp with 30 female and makhna elephants sensed the movement of the tusker with the behavioural changes of their elephants and calmed down their animals.Mettupalayam Range Officer M. Nazir said 30 forest personnel burst more than 1,000 crackers, used three vehicles with sirens and played drums to chase the elephant away.
The tusker joined its herd on Saturday morning, he added.