India, May 31 -- By A.C. Lakshmana, IFS (Retd.)

As a recent death during an elephant fight was reported in the media, I couldn't help but recall my own adventures with these massive and amazing creatures during the last Khedda in Karnataka.

Khedda is the coming together of courage, strategy and intuition to capture the wild elephants. In this operation, tamed elephants are used to herd the wild elephants into an enclosure.

In the early 1900s, wild elephants had to be captured to manage the man-animal conflict in Chamarajanagar. But soon it ended with 'conservation' taking centre stage rather than 'managing' the conflict.

When the Karnataka Government decided to construct the Kabini Dam, it also decided to conduct the last Khedda Opera...