A two-month-old elephant calf drowned in a pond, where it had gone to drink water along with a herd of elephants in an area coming under Mudumalai Tiger Reserve (MTR), forest Department sources said here today.
Hearing the continuous trumpeting sounds of herd of elephants this morning, numbering around 12, the villagers of Chemmanatham, some 30 KMs from here, alerted the Forest Department officials.
After scaring away the elephants, the officials managed to pull out the body of the calf.
Veterinarian Dr Vijayaraghavan, who conducted post mortem on the calf, said that it might have died last evening itself.
The body was buried, he said.