Elephants keep officials on their toes

MANDYA: More than 20 forest officials, led by Chief Conservator of Forest Ajay Mishra and Deputy Conservator of Forests Vinaykumar, sweated for hours from Wednesday as a herd of five elephants from Muthatti forest entered Dhadamahalli and destroyed standing crops and coconut farms.The herd which moved out on Tuesday night from Muthatti forest, entered a farm owned by M Shivaswamy and destroyed turmeric crops and coconut trees causing a loss of around Rs 1 lakh.They crossed National Highway 209 and entered Yathambadi, T K halli.The forest officials managed to chase them back to Thalehalla forest on Thursday evening.