Elephant herd enters Gadchiroli from Chhattisgarh, forest officials on alert

“The herd, which includes three small cubs who are about three months old, apparently entered Gadchiroli from Chhattisgarh about 4-5 days ago. We are keeping a watch on their movement and have alerted villages in Dhanora tahsil in the range of about 40 km from the border,” he added.

Asked if the herd has been moving or staying put at one spot, Mankar said, “It is moving but we don’t yet know if and when it will move out of the district.”

Gadchiroli doesn’t have elephants and doesn’t have a record of regular elephant presence. But occasionally, elephants do pass through the border areas, which serve as a corridor for their movement right from Odisha to Chhattisgarh and further up.

The earlier instance of elephants entering the district was in June 2019 when two brothers, named Ram and Balram, had come to the Korchi forest after beginning their journey in Odisha and traversing through Chhattisgarh. On one occasion during their journey, a forest guard was injured in a melee of onlookers.
One of the two brothers had tragically been electrocuted near Bargi dam in Jabalpur district of Madhya Pradesh in November last year.