In Jharkhand, a wild elephant mother was struggling to walk.

A severe injury to her footpad was making movement difficult, and her young calf, around two to three years old, remained with her.

The elephant needed treatment, but getting her to a veterinary facility would bring its own risks. Moving a several-tonne wild animal can cause further stress, especially when it is already injured or frightened. In this case, the team also had to consider the calf that was with her.

So the veterinarians brought the treatment to them.

For nearly 10 days, the team remained in the field, treating the mother and following her recovery.

Cases like this reveal a challenge that begins even before treatment does: how do you care for an elephant that cannot safely be taken to a hospital?

An injured elephant may be standing at the edge of a village, beside a road or in a field. It may have a wound that needs cleaning, a foot that can barely bear its weight or an infection that has gone untreated. A veterinary hospital may have the medicines, equipment and expertise needed to help, while the journey there may be difficult or unsafe.

For wild elephants, capture and transport can also mean moving an already frightened or injured animal away from its herd or familiar surroundings. When a mother has a calf with her, that decision becomes even more complicated.

This is the problem Wildlife SOS is trying to address through ‘Haathi Sewa’, its mobile veterinary initiative. Meaning ‘in service to elephants’, Haathi Sewa takes veterinary expertise, diagnostic equipment and medicines directly to elephants that need care.

The idea is simple: when an elephant cannot safely reach a hospital, the hospital travels to the elephant.

The Better India spoke to Wildlife SOS co-founders Kartick Satyanarayan and Geeta Seshamani, as well as Dr Arun A Sha, Director, Research & Veterinary Operations, to understand what it takes to treat an elephant when veterinary care has to reach the animal where it is.

Bringing X-rays, medicines and treatment into the field 

A mobile veterinary unit changes the first question a rescue team........

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