At the beginning of March, sightings of a Neelgai that had lost its way into the colony were reported. The wildlife department turned up to take it away but the elusive animal was nowhere to be found. When it was sighted again after another couple of days, grazing inside a plot at Pine Drive, Jagdish Bhatia of PD-69 immediately informed an RWA member. The wildlife department was called but since they were occupied with another rescue, it was going to take a while for them to turn up. To ensure sureshot visibility of the animal This time around, the security team was asked to trail the Neelgai. The security team, led by CSO Rajesh Kumar kept an eye on the wandering Neelgai. By the time the wildlife team, led by Officer Krishan Kumar arrived, we had the exact location of Neelgai which was the area behind Mt.Olympus School.
Since hordes of worker families inhabit the spot, the security team was asked to keep the commotion in check while the wildlife team prepared for the rescue operation. Krishan Kumar loaded his tranquilizer with due dosage and the remaining team set off to corner the Neelgai. Turned out it was a sub-adult Neelgai calf and hence had neither learnt its escape tactics well enough or learnt to be wary of humans yet, both factors worked well in favour of the team. The calf was cornered easily and a dart was fired which hit the target. The calf ran for a few meters before taking a tumble and falling unconscious while the security team ensured that the curious humans stayed out of the way of the galloping calf.
Once unconscious, the calf, weighing around 150 kgs was then loaded into the wildlife van and taken for a release in the Bhondsi forest in the Arvallis as it is the nearest and the most likely spot the Neelgai could have come from. Herds of Neelgais are a common sighting in the Aravalli forests.
Once there, the calf that had regained consciousness, was successfully let out into the wilderness. Hopefully, it found and reunited with its family. All in all, it seemed like a happy ending.
