Follow | A baby elephant washed up in Bengal’s Teesta rescued by fishermen has been reunited with its mother

Bablu Das was fishing in the Teesta River in West Bengal’s Jalpaiguri district on Monday morning (September 21, 2026) when his phone rang. He was the sluice gate operator from the Gajoldoba Teesta dam upstream. “The baby elephant is going downstream. Save it,” shouted a man on the other side.

A few minutes ago, the operator of the warning gate, Tapan Das, spotted the four-day-old calf floating in the swirling Teesta and raised the gate further to prevent it from hitting the structure.

The calf was crossing a river near a dam when strong currents swept it away from the herd. His mother crossed the river and frantically searched for the body.

About 5km away, Bablu Das and his friends – Ajay, Mithu, Biswanath and Gopal – rowed a boat, maneuvering bamboo sticks to stay on course, and found a calf that had periscoped its trunk out of the raging river to take a breath.

In a video shot by one of the boatmen, a voice could be heard saying, “Ekdom baccha re! Dhor, dhor, dhor (It’s a little calf. Save it).” The boat chased the calf and a minute later Amit and Biswajit plucked it onto the boat before conducting an inspection. It was still breathing.

“The calf looked nervous. Its body was very cold. We tried to calm it down and steered the boat to the shore,” Mr. Das told The Hindu.

Reunion

Meanwhile, forest officials from different areas of the Baikunthapur Forest Division rode along the river bank with a vet to prepare for what Samiran Raj, Range Officer of Belacoba Range, called “the most important part of the mission – the reunion with the mother”.

An elephant with her calf tucked between her legs on the bed of the Teesta River. | Photo credit: Special arrangement

The calf was taken upstream of the dam, right where it was separated from the herd, where the team found the elephants waiting for the baby.

Mr. Raj, who accompanied the team, said the team could not identify the mother. “The plan was simple” – to release the calf on a dry stretch of river bed and wait. “The calf would call its mother, which allowed her to identify her baby and come back to get it,” he said.

But there was a problem. Hundreds of people gathered to make the reels, and the commotion distracted the herd, which was hiding behind a strip of tall wild grass growing along the river bank. The calf kept returning to its rescuers because it felt safe, Mr. Raj said. Moments later, she started calling her mother from a distance. The mother responded and emerged, crawling over to the calf and letting out a loud clatter before packing it into her trunk.

A calf walks towards its mother along a dry stretch of the Teesta River bed. | Photo credit: Special arrangement

Mudit Kumar, DFO of Baikunthapur division, called the two-hour operation a “beautiful story of rescue and reunion” and praised the local fishermen and the forest team.

Local heroes

In their village, the five fishermen were hailed as heroes. The videos went viral and local NGOs were called to praise them. Surrounded by villagers at the daily evening adda, where the topic of the day was the brief social media fame of the five rescuers, Mr. Das told The Hindu that this was not their first rescue effort.

“We coordinated with the forest department and rescued elephant calves and deer. We live next to Teesta and spend the whole day fishing there,” said Mr. Das, who is also the secretary of the Uttarbanga Matsyajibi Forum.

While the forest department praised the “courage, local knowledge, paddling skills and timely assistance of the five fishermen”, Mr. Das said they had their limitations. “We are running a small boat and we don’t have life jackets. Even if we try to save life to any extent, we are asking the government to help us,” he said.

Published – 24 Sep 2026 01:21 IST