Thursday, November 06, 2014

Flailing, upside-down elephant rescued from ditch

A juvenile male Asian elephant somehow became trapped upside-down in an irrigation ditch at Borhola, near Diphloo tea estate in Assam, India, at the weekend. He was struggling to move and trumpeting, clearly in pain. The elephant is believed to have become trapped the previous night when its herd tried to sneak into the nearby paddy field nearby and had fallen into the ditch.


YouTube link.

A veterinarian gave the elephant some medicine to ease his pain and calm him, after which point a team from IFAW-Wildlife Trust of India, set to work. Using shovels and spades, they carefully widened the ditch around the animal to give him more room to turn over and find a foothold. After about an hour of digging, the elephant was finally able to raise himself up and out of the ditch. The elephant also managed a small mock chase at the crowd but soon it made its way towards the nearest forest.

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