{"id":72809,"date":"2025-09-19T05:07:21","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T05:07:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/72809\/"},"modified":"2025-09-19T05:07:21","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T05:07:21","slug":"chamundi-the-elephant-calf-that-strayed-into-wayanad-school-dies-kerala-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/72809\/","title":{"rendered":"Chamundi, the elephant calf that strayed into Wayanad school, dies | Kerala News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chamundi, the elephant calf that strayed into Wayanad school, dies | Kerala News | Onmanorama<\/p>\n


\n
\n
\n <\/p>\n

\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOnmanorama Staff<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPublished: September 17, 2025 12:47 PM IST<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Updated: September 17, 2025 01:02 PM IST<\/p>\n

1 minute Read<\/p>\n

\"Elephant <\/p>\n

\t \tElephant calf at Government LP School Chekadi. Photo: Special arrangement<\/p>\n

Wayanad:\u00a0Chamundi, the three-month-old elephant calf that had wandered into the Government Lower Primary School at Chekadi<\/a> on August 18, died on Sunday afternoon at the Bella Forest Range elephant camp in Karnataka\u2019s Nagarhole Tiger Reserve. The calf, named Chamundi by Karnataka forest staff, succumbed to internal infection despite weeks of care.<\/p>\n

The Kerala Forest Department had earlier released the calf near a herd close to the Karnataka border, but the animals refused to accept it. The herd returned across the Kabani River, leaving the calf behind. Residents of Kadagadal village later alerted Karnataka forest officials, who took the abandoned elephant to the camp.<\/p>\n

\"Elephant<\/p>\n

\t \tElephant calf at Bella Forest Camp, Bandipur, Karnataka. Photo: Special arrangement<\/p>\n

The incident had sparked an inter-state row, with Kerala officials insisting the calf was abandoned, while their Karnataka counterparts alleged Kerala deliberately pushed it across the border to avoid the burden of care. They argued a calf so young could not have walked four kilometres and swum across a rain-swollen Kabani River on its own.<\/p>\n

For nearly a month, mahouts and veterinarians sourced goat milk from miles away to feed Chamundi, as it was too young to eat fodder. Wildlife experts, including Dr Arun Zachariah, Chief Veterinary Officer of the Kerala Forest Department, maintained that the calf\u2019s abandonment was evident, pointing out that the herd would not have left it behind when it strayed into human habitats.<\/p>\n

67pnrbnf0e21rr9phsubveq6vh-list onmanorama-topic-general-topics-23-kerala-school 6l5019gr58o4sv8gkn1goic4jk onmanorama-topic-destination-5-kerala onmanorama-topic-general-topics-14-elephant onmanorama-topic-destination-9-wayanad uqongvkmofn9hmeo7acoj7kp4-list<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chamundi, the elephant calf that strayed into Wayanad school, dies | Kerala News | Onmanorama …\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72810,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[273],"tags":[49930,49941,49931,49940,18,49929,49937,49942,49934,19,49939,17,49938,49932,49933,49935,49936,133,461,31052],"class_list":{"0":"post-72809","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-abandoned-elephant","9":"tag-bella-forest-range","10":"tag-chamundi-elephant","11":"tag-chekadi-school-elephant","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-elephant-calf","14":"tag-elephant-care","15":"tag-elephant-internal-infection","16":"tag-elephant-rescue","17":"tag-ie","18":"tag-inter-state-wildlife-dispute","19":"tag-ireland","20":"tag-kabani-river","21":"tag-karnataka-forest","22":"tag-kerala-forest","23":"tag-nagarhole-tiger-reserve","24":"tag-orphaned-elephant","25":"tag-science","26":"tag-wildlife","27":"tag-wildlife-conservation"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}