Pilibhit (Uttar Pradesh), Nov 9 (IANS): Four elephants from Karnataka have finally reached their new home in the Pilibhit Tiger Reserve (PTR).
The four elephants reached Pilibhit on Tuesday evening, completing a 3,000-kilometre journey by road.
The elephants will be formally welcomed by state minister of environment, forest and climate change Dr Arun Kumar Saxena at a ceremony at PTR's Mala elephant camp.
Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) of PTR, Naveen Khandelwal, said, "The prime objective of the elephants is their deployment in 'combing' of around 20 to 25 stray tigers in PTR after they reach the suitable age limit and complete their specialised training. This is aimed at mitigating the man-tiger conflict in villages located in proximity to PTR."
According to him, of the four jumbos, the youngest named 'Manikanta' is aged about 4.5 years and 'Surya Junior' is six years old. They were brought from the Mattigodu elephant camp.
Two sub-adult jumbos include Nisharga, 11, a female, and Surya, 13 who have been translocated from the Ramapura and Sakrebyle elephant camps, respectively.
The 'mahouts' would take them across PTR to let them be fully adaptable to local forest.
In the absence of their mothers, the two young elephants are currently on an oral diet.
Both Manikanta and Surya Junior had been kept under training at Mattigodu along with a well-trained adult elephant, he said.