Separated from herd, curious baby elephant found playing at Kerala school, later turns up in Karnataka

It stepped onto the veranda of the school and started playing with the students’ sandals that were left outside a classroom. In a video that has since gone viral, a teacher can be heard wondering aloud, “Is it (the calf) going to wear the slippers?”

Students watched through classroom windows. Later, forest officials took the calf to the nearby forest, where they had spotted the herd.

However, the herd were reportedly not ready to accept the baby elephant. Two days later, the calf again strayed into human settlement — this time in Karnataka’s Bairakuppa. From there, forest officials took the calf to an elephant camp at Balle.

Chethalayam (Wayanad) forest range officer M K Rajeev Kumar said the calf might have been abandoned by the herd. “If a calf has any health issues or the elders in the group feel it won’t survive, they will abandon it. We could not prima facie identify any health issue. We had taken the calf close to the herd, and it looked keen to join them. Later, when the herd crossed the Kabini river, the calf also likely followed them. It later strayed into the Karnataka village, finally landing in a camp,” he said.

The official said that if a calf is healthy, the herd would not abandon it and that they would hang around nearby until it returns.

“We have seen many occasions when a calf falls into trenches in forest boundaries, the entire herd waits to receive it till the rescue is over,” he said.