Elephant Rivaldo gets German collar

The elephant, due to be released into the wild, has been fitted with the collar so that the Forest Department can monitor its movement

Rivaldo will soon be released into the wild.

Rivaldo, the wild elephant kept in a kraal,awaiting its releaseback into the Mudumalai wilderness, has now got a collar from Germany to enable the Forest Department to monitor its movement. Chief Wildlife Warden Shekhar Kumar Niraj said the collar was procured from Vectronics, a German company.

The collar has GPS and VHF transmitters inbuilt, with a three-year collar life battery backup.

“We can monitor the collar [elephant] movement by logging into the website of the company. Currently, the collar is set to transmit four fixes every hour. The animal is doing well,” he said.

According to the company website, the Vertex Plus elephant collar has features like recording of up to 365,500 GPS positions, basic 3-axis activity sensor, mortality sensor, temperature sensor, VHF beacon, virtual fence and a communication schedule.