Madikeri: A wild elephant, which had entered a coffee estate has died after falling into a water pond at the estate at Yelaneeru Gundi village near Shanivarasanthe and the incident came to light when the estate workers saw the elephant’s body in the pond on Saturday morning.

A pond was constructed in the coffee estate of one Chandrashekar to store water. A heard of three wild elephants had strayed into the estate from the nearby reserve forest and a female elephant, aged about 20 years, fell into the 10 ft. deep pond accidentally and died.

Estate workers, who saw the dead elephant in the pond, informed the Forest Department officials and a team of Forest staff led by Shanivarasanthe Range Forest Officer (RFO) Prafullakumar Shetty reached the spot and conducted an inspection.

A crane was summoned and the elephant’s body was removed from the pond. Post-mortem was conducted at the spot by Shanivarasanthe Veterinarian Dr. Satish and the body was shifted to the nearby reserve forest.