BENGALURU: Forest and Ecology Minister Eshwar B Khandre’s recent order directing the use of camp elephants to capture elusive, conflict-causing tigers has intensified anxiety among forest personnel - especially among Karnataka’s mahouts and kawadis.
This is because the elephants, across the 10 camps in the state, have to undergo special tiger capture training. But before that, the mahouts and kawadis have to be well-trained for that.
“There are 107 elephants in the forest camps in the state. Not all elephants and mahouts are trained for capture operations. Some are trained for elephants, some for tigers, some for training other elephants and some are residing in camps to help other new entrants adjust to their surroundings. Training all the elephants at the earliest is a concern,” said a senior official.
The mahouts pointed out that this is a challenging task as the number of man-animal conflict incidents is on the rise across the state.
A mahout, not wanting to be named, said, “There was a time when some elephants were pressed to capture wild elephants, and some had to be diverted for tiger capture. At the same time, we also had to ensure that some are left behind, as we have young calves and new entrants.”