The elephant that came floating in floodwaters of the Brahmaputra from Assam 49 days ago, died in a swamp at Sharishabari in Jamalpur yesterday. ‘Banga Bahadur’, named so by Koira villagers who had earlier helped pull it out from water, met its end due to inept handling and an overdose of tranquiliser. Several attempts had been made to rescue it. First by a team from the Assam Forest Department, which abandoned it on August 7. Then rescuers from the Bangladesh Forest Department (BFD) took over. They tranquilised the elephant and pulled it out of the water last week. But recovering from its tranquilised state, it waded into a swamp. This time, it was trapped and put in fetters.
Angry local people questioned the forest officials why did they leave it to die like that, in fetters, without food and water and care. This caused the huge animal to suffer from improper blood circulation, triggering a heart attack, observed a former curator of the Dhaka Zoo, AKM Shahidullah. The forest officials fled the scene in the face of demonstrations by local people. Far away in Dubai, prominent zoologist and elephant specialist, Dr Mohammad Ali Reza Khan, told The Independent TV reporter, Shahriar Anirban, that the poor animal died of an overdose of tranquiliser.
Dr Khan recently helped prepare the Red Book of Endangered Animals of Bangladesh by the IUCN, and now advises the Dubai Zoo as an animal specialist. He was annoyed with the BFD people, questioning why did they use so much tranquiliser to put it on sleep several times.
Since the elephant came out of the river on Thursday, it was put on tranquiliser with darts fired from a tranquiliser gun by the BFD men. It was then chained and tightly roped to a tree. By Monday, till its death yesterday, three more darts were fired and the animal was put on saline to help it wake up. The BFD people defended themselves by saying that they had no other way to tame the wild bull and chain it to bring it out of the swamp to be released in the Bangabandhu Safari Park at Gazipur. For this, two elephants were being transported to Sharishabari from the Kaptai National Park and were scheduled to arrive on Wednesday.
But ‘Banga Bahadur’, weighing nearly four tonnes and requiring nearly that much of food for survival, had lost its appetite when the BFD people gave it some banana plants and sugarcane. Experts opined that the BFD did not seek any advice from them to rescue the animal. They pointed out that at least 70 elephants had died in Bangladesh during the past 11 years due to conflicts with humans clearing their grazing grounds denying them food, despite the BFD taking up four projects for their protection.
Our Jamalpur correspondent adds: Dr Tapan Kumar Dey, a former DFD official,  said they used the tranquilisers as advised by the Assam forest officials, which included a veterinarian as well.
About the next steps, Dr Dey said the cause of death of the elephant would be known after a post-mortem examination. The viscera and other body parts of the elephant would be collected under the supervision of a three-member team headed by the Jamalpur deputy commissioner.
Local people staged a demonstration in the area and held the Forest Department responsible for the death. The agitated people demanded a proper inquiry to bring out the cause of the death and trial if their negligence was established. The carcass of ‘Banga Bahadur’ would be buried where it died after collection of its viscera and other body parts, local sources said.
The elephant got separated from his herd in Assam in India and floated into Bangladeshi territory in floodwaters through the Roumari border in Kurigram district on June 27. It reached Sarishabari in Jamalpur on July 28 and was roaming various villages in Sarishabari and Madarganj upazilas of the district, with hundreds of people chasing it to protect their homes and crop fields.
Three Indian foresters arrived in Jamalpur on August 4 and launched a joint rescue effort with a 17-member BFD team on August 5 in Sarishabari upazila. The Indian team left on August 7.
In a frantic effort, a BFD team rescued the elephant after tranquilising it at Koyra village in Sarishabari upazila on August 11. The BFD people again tranquilised it when it tried to flee after breaking its chains on Sunday morning and reached the marshland in the Baidya Beel area, half a kilometre from the spot. Veterinary surgeon, Dr Mostafizur Rahman, shot four darts to tranquilise the elephant and shackled it there. After the second dose of tranquilisers, the weak elephant lay fell on the marsh land on Monday morning and did not stand up again.
Meanwhile, Indian High Commissioner in Dhaka Harsh Vardhan Shringla yesterday thanked the government, environment and forests ministry and the locals for all the supports and help extended in the best possible way to look after the Indian wild elephant though it finally died, reports UNB.
“We’re really grateful…we can’t expect anything more. We’re sorry that the elephant died,” the High Commissioner told reporters after his meeting with Foreign Secretary M Shahidul Haque at the latter’s office.