Mysuru: An elephant aged around 22 years drowned in the barrage constructed across river Cauvery, near Kollegal town, on Wednesday.
It is said that a heard of elephants that had strayed into Dhanagere and Saraguru were retracting to the jungles on Wednesday evening when one of them was trapped in gushing water in the barrage.
Out of the four, three escaped while one drowned, said forest department sources.
Post-mortem was conducted on Thursday and it was confirmed that the elephant’s death was due to drowning.
The herd had camped in a field nearby and repeated attempts to scare them away failed. However, on Wednesday the herd had voluntarily started retracting, but the tragedy struck one of them.
