As a Dasara gift 21 year old, Lakshmi, who is a part of 14 elephants being trained for Dasara Jamboo Savari, comfortably delivered a male calf on the palace premises on Tuesday night around 8.15. The mother and the newborn are separated from the Jumbo camp now.
Normally, the expecting jumbos are not selected for Dasara procession. But neither the forest department officials and veterinarians nor the mahuts knew that she was pregnant until just a few hours before she delivered.
As elephants have a long gestation period ranging from 18 months to 22 months, it is very difficult to detect pregnancy in an elephant.
Lakshmi, who belongs to Ramapura elephant camp in Bandipur, was brought to Dasara for the first time in 2017 but she had panicked during the cannon firing and had to be pulled out of the Dasara procession.
This time she brought to Mysore in August along with eight other elephants. It is for the first time after 25 years that a Dasara elephant delivered on the palace premises.
Mr. Karikalan Deputy Conservator of Forest (Wildlife) and incharge of Dasara elephants said, that neither mahaut nor the officials, knew that Lakshmi is pregnant. “It was only on Tuesday afternoon at around 12.30 PM mahout and kavadi noticed her unusual behavior which showed discomfort. They informed the forest veterinarian who came to the spot and conducted medical examination and came to know that she was expecting and was suffering from labour pain, we separate her from the camp, monitored her health and she delivered the baby comfortably about 8.15”.
