Veterinarian known for rearing orphaned elephant calves wins awards for wildlife management, conservation

veterinarian bags awards for wildlife management and conservation

K. Asokan, veterinary assistant surgeon, with the Animal Husbandry Department at Kovilpalayam near Pollachi in Coimbatore district, won two awards instituted by the Environment, Climate Change and Forest Department, for his services in wildlife management and conservation.

Minister for Environment and Climate Change Siva V. Meyyanathan presented the awards, for environment protection and wildlife management for the year 2019 and for environmental education for the year 2021, to him at an event held in Chennai on the World Environment Day on June 6.

Dr. Asokan said that various activities, including rescue and treatment of wild animals, birds and reptiles, and environmental education he did while working as the wildlife veterinarian of Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve (STR) till January 2022 won him the awards.

Last year, he was chosen for the Anna Medal for Gallantry for saving wild elephants and protecting people.

Having joined the Animal Husbandry Department in 1990, he worked with the Forest Department as wildlife veterinarian for 12 years. Besides serving in STR and in the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve (MTR), he worked as the Director of the mini zoological park of the Coimbatore City Municipal Corporation.

While at STR, Dr. Asokan headed a project that involved implanting radio transmitters in Indian rock pythons for telemetry study.

“Rearing orphaned elephant calves is one of the challenging and satisfying tasks I had in my service. So far, around 20 orphaned calves have been taken care of, including Ammu alias Bommi featured in the Oscar winning documentary Elephant Whisperers. Ammu was with me for 25 days, before being shifted to MTR,” said Dr. Asokan, who has conducted post-mortems of around 400 elephants.