BELAGAVI, 10 MARCH

Facing a growing crisis with rogue elephants, Maharashtra has turned to Karnataka's forest department for assistance in capturing the wild animals that have ravaged vast areas of crops over the past two months.

Nine adult elephants, causing destruction in the Sindhudurg and Ratnagiri districts of Maharashtra, have wreaked havoc in nearby Belagavi, leading to compensation payouts of Rs 9 crore and an expenditure of Rs 20 crore in efforts to locate them.

In a recent success, the Belagavi forest department captured a wild elephant in the Khanapur forest in January. The operation involved two additional elephants from Sakrebailu, which swiftly completed the task in just half a day. Conversely, Maharashtra's efforts to locate the rogue elephants have proven fruitless after two months of operations.

Khanapur’s Assistant Conservator of Forest, Sunita Nimbaragi, confirmed that a team of nine officials from Maharashtra underwent a week-long training session in Khanapur last week, with plans for further instruction in the coming days. “We demonstrated the video of how the wild elephant was safely captured and returned to the deep forests of Khanapur,” she explained.

Maharashtra has formally requested Karnataka to send a team of forest officials to aid in capturing the elephants, to which Karnataka has consented.