KOCHI: The State Government’s decision to rehabilitate aged and injured elephants by setting up a 100-acre rehabilitation centre in the State, following mounting pressure from various quarters, with the aim of ending elephant abuse has made captive elephant owners in the State jittery, especially private persons who own jumbos.
Recently, the Forest Department had organised a two-day interactive workshop for mahouts from the four Forest Department-owned elephant care centres and a few selected mahouts from various Devaswom boards, at the Kodanad Elephant Care Centre in Ernakulam. The workshop was conducted in association with Delhi-based Wildlife SOS, which in collaboration with the Uttar Pradesh Forest Department provides medical treatment to elephants in distress and rehabilitates them.
Kerala Elephant Owners’ Federation secretary P Sasikumar alleged that the government’s move was an attempt to take control of the 560-odd captive elephants in the State. “Interestingly, the move comes from the Forest Department that is unwilling to accord permission to start a hospital of international standard exclusively for elephants on the 31-acre land acquired by the Federation in Thrissur,” said Sasikumar.
Speaking to ‘Express,’ Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCF) and head of the Forest Force Dr BS Corrie said that the elephant owners’ apprehensions was unfounded as the Department’s move was aimed at creating awareness on humane and scientific management of captive elephants. The interactive workshop on elephant training was organised with the view of developing one of the elephant care centres into a model care centre for conditioning elephants using a new method.
At present, elephants are trained by mahouts, which include teaching the jumbos to obey commands by instilling fear of torture in them. They often resort to unscientific ‘third-degree’ torture while training elephants. Under the new system, elephants will be trained without torturing them, and they will be rewarded with fruits and peanuts as the training progresses,” said PCCF (Social Forestry) C S Yalakki.
“We have sought the service of Wildlife SOS, which rescued over 628 sloth bears from across the country from exploitation by the entertainment industry and established two elephant centres at Mathura in Uttar Pradesh and at Yamuna Nagar in Haryana. The agency was roped in after visiting its care centres and reviewing their functioning,” said Corrie.