Elephant Rescue Pictures

[Nitro Express]

April 23rd 2009, a juvenile female elephant was knocked off the railway track by a speeding train in Deepor Beel, Guwahati.I am posting a few rescue pictures of that day.

The track passing thru this area has been for responsible over a dozen elephant deaths since 2004 onwards.

Nitro Express

[nagarifle]

that's some awesome pics, good work

[hvj1]

Did she survive? There seem to be no external injuries, though if there were internal injuries, these could be worst. Extremely sorry for the poor animal. Pointless to talk about railway tracks being built in such sections, but then this country notorious for its apathy to animals, I am not surprised.

[darashp]

i hope she will be alright...b,cos no injuries were seen some how.the jungles are shrinking day by day then what did the poor animals do?

[nagarifle]

remember this was in 2009 not this morning

[Vikram]

Nitro,

Was the poor beast dead? It really makes me very sad to see what we do to animals in the name of development.They come very low in the priority list while making these plans.

Thank you for sharing the pictures.

Best-
Vikram

[nagarifle]

vickers its called progress, and someone or animal have to pay the price.

[Vassili Zaitsev]

is she alright?sad to see such state of a majestic animal

[Sakobav]

Hope she survived..

[Nitro Express]

We had shifted her to the Zoo for further treatment.She died after a week.
Her back broke when she was hit by the train.She couldnot move her hindquarters.We tried to put her on a sling to keep her up.In the end she just gave up.

Nitro Express

[hvj1]

God Bless you guys for trying.

[Vikram]

What a horrible way to die!

Thank you for having tried.

Best-
Vikram

[MoA]

Sad that animals no longer have their habitat. Ah well the price of 'progress'.

[prashantsingh]

One of the methods used in Rajaji National Parks Uttarakhand to prevent such accidents (in areas where the railway track passes thru thick jungles) is to slow down the speed of the train to about 35 kmph and honk as often as possible. The Honking does disturb the animals but the good thing is that it also keeps them away. Even at 35 kmph the impact of something as heavy as a train can be tremendous. Though the number of casualties has reduced......accidents still take place.

-- Tue Sep 07, 2010 11:40 pm --

In one of my visits to the Railway Museam . New Delhi , I saw the skull of an elephant on display. I had always been interested in Wildlife so i walked up to it and read the entire story.
The story which I vaguely remember was about how the train had been of much interest to the wild animals (specially the elephants). The pioneers of our Railway Dept. laid tracks which ran through the darkest and thickest Indian jungles. The Tuskers in these jungles had never seen anything as massive and noisy as a train. What was this creature trying to challenge these massive beasts and also trespassing on their territory. So they would actually try and fight them ....... often head on....with catastrophic results.
I wonder if the skull is still present in the museam.

-- Tue Sep 07, 2010 11:43 pm --

Good show "Nitro". The female didn't have a chance.....but at least you guys tried.

[Nitro Express]

The train track passing thru Deepor Beel cuts into elephant corridors at various points.The elephants have to cross the track to get to the wetland which lies in the other side of the track.They frequent the wetland to calf and to feed on the floating vegetation.Many a times while doing so they get blinded by the light from the oncoming train and get hit.



The photograph below is of a feral female which we had rescued on 15th October 2008.She was hit by a train and thrown into the drainage portion of the track.We had to use two Koonkies (Trained Elephants) to secure her and bring her to a safe place.Vets working on her found out that she was pregnant.She died a day later.



I am posting a few more photographs of elephants which did not survive the Death Railway.





Nitro Express

** We rescued a three year old female calf today and managed to reunite it with the herd.I will post details later.

-- Tue Sep 07, 2010 22:52 --

One of the methods used in Rajaji National Parks Uttarakhand to prevent such accidents (in areas where the railway track passes thru thick jungles) is to slow down the speed of the train to about 35 kmph and honk as often as possible. The Honking does disturb the animals but the good thing is that it also keeps them away. Even at 35 kmph the impact of something as heavy as a train can be tremendous. Though the number of casualties has reduced......accidents still take place.

-- Tue Sep 07, 2010 11:40 pm --

In one of my visits to the Railway Museam . New Delhi , I saw the skull of an elephant on display. I had always been interested in Wildlife so i walked up to it and read the entire story.
The story which I vaguely remember was about how the train had been of much interest to the wild animals (specially the elephants). The pioneers of our Railway Dept. laid tracks which ran through the darkest and thickest Indian jungles. The Tuskers in these jungles had never seen anything as massive and noisy as a train. What was this creature trying to challenge these massive beasts and also trespassing on their territory. So they would actually try and fight them ....... often head on....with catastrophic results.
I wonder if the skull is still present in the museam.

-- Tue Sep 07, 2010 11:43 pm --

Good show "Nitro". The female didn't have a chance.....but at least you guys tried.

We tried, but it was not enough.Sometimes I feel we are fighting for a futile cause.

We too have imposed speed restrictions.Most of the time it is flaunted.

Nitro Express