Chipra Rani with her youngest calf on the Bangdaki beat office campus. Picture by Anirban Choudhury

Bangdaki (Alipurduar), March 31: Chipra Rani is 66 years old, stands 8 feet 11 inches tall and has been serving the Bengal forest department for nearly 41 years.

S.S. Bist, the chief wildlife warden of Bengal, said she was the longest-serving trained elephant in the state, probably even in the entire country.

“We have many kunkis (trained elephants) that are older than Chipra Rani, but she has served the Bengal forest department the longest. She is definitely one of the most experienced kunkis in India in terms of service,” Bist told The Telegraph.

Chipra Rani spent the first 25 years of her life in the wild. The forest department captured her from the Chipra beat of Buxa Tiger Reserve in 1967, said the chief wildlife warden. Foresters separated her from the herd with the help of trained elephants before catching her. She was then trained to be a kunki and pressed into the department’s service.

A forest official said this technique of seizing wild elephants and making them work in captivity was stopped in 1972, when the wildlife protection act was implemented.

Chipra Rani was named after the forest beat from where she had been captured. According to forest sources, a microchip implanted below one of her ears bears the number 00064D9C51. The forest department keeps track of its trained elephants through these chips.

For an elephant born in the wild, Chipra Rani has been an extremely gentle animal. She has been working in the Bangdaki beat of Jaldapara (West) range of Cooch Behar forest division for the past 20 years, 14 of them under Dhanbahadur Dorji, a mahout who retired in 2004.

“She always obeys commands and has never injured any person or forest worker. She has taken part in many operations in Midnapore and Bankura (where she was part of team formed to send wild elephants back into the forest), Gorumara (for rhino census) and Buxa Tiger Reserve (to find an injured wild elephant),” Dorji said.

Chipra Rani has also given birth to five calves, the youngest less that two years old. Two of them, both male, died young, while the remaining three, all female, are doing well.

There are no plans to retire Chipra Rani just yet, said the chief wildlife warden.

“Retirement of kunkis depends on their physical condition. At the moment, she is the best trained elephant in the state and probably in the country,” said Bist.