Four elephants pressed into service; housed in Aloka at Yelwal

Mysore/Mysuru: Following a tiger being spotted at Mysore Airport in Mandakalli late night on Jan. 4 and in the wee hours of Jan. 5, the Forest Department has summoned four Dasara elephants from Dubare Elephant Camp yesterday to conduct combing operations.

The Forest Department have commenced combing operation by deploying drone cameras to trace the elusive big cat this morning and once the tiger is spotted on the drone cameras, the Forest authorities will bring the four Dasara elephants — Harsha, Sugreeva, Kanjan and Prashanth — to the spot and take steps to capture the tiger.

After the four Dasara elephants were summoned, they were housed in the Airport premises last night. Sensing that the elephants may panic during landing and taking off of aircraft and helicopters at the Airport, they were shifted to Aloka in Yelwal.

It is suspected that the elusive tiger is the sibling of the tiger, which was killed in a road accident near the Airport in January 2024 and this tiger may have been wandering around in this region since then.

Deputy Conservator of Forests (DCF) K. Paramesh, Range Forest Officer (RFO) Santosh Hugar, Veterinarians Dr. Waseem Mirza & Dr. Adarsh, Leopard Task Force & Elephant Task Force personnel and Forest Dept. staff, numbering more than 100, are conducting combing operation.

Late on Sunday night, security personnel, who were patrolling the Airport premises, spotted the tiger and on Monday at about 6 am, a CCTV camera installed in the Airport premises captured a video of the tiger moving on the road next to the compound leading towards the railway track. The tiger, which moved towards the runway, then disappeared.

Following the sighting of the tiger, the Forest Department officials and staff, who rushed to the spot, deployed a thermal drone and conducted combing till late Monday night, but were unable to trace the tiger. It is suspected that the tiger may have sneaked through the barbed wire spiral fence laid on the compound behind the Airport as the tiger’s hair was found stuck to the barbed wire fence.

When Forest officials went through the footage of CCTV camera installed near TVS Factory, they could not find any clues of the tiger’s movements. It is now suspected that the tiger may be still inside the Airport premises.

The combing operation was on, when we went to the Press.