MYSURU: 21-year-old cow elephant Lakshmi, who is part of a herd of 14 elephants being trained for Dasara Jamboo Savari, was heavily pregnant, and delivered a healthy calf on Tuesday night. But the shocker is that neither the forest department officials and veterinarians nor the mahouts even suspected that she was pregnant until just a few hours before she delivered in the Mysuru Palace premises.
Despite much care and nutrition being given to the 14 elephants being trained for the Dasara Jamboo Savari in Mysuru, forest officials, veterinarians and mahouts failed to realise that one of them was heavily pregnant and subjected to arduous physical training and cannon firing. Lakshmi was brought to Dasara for the first time in 2017, but she had panicked during the cannon firing and had to be pulled out of the jumbo procession.
Lakshmi’s pregnancy went undetected despite the much-publicized care, nutrition and medical attention given to these elephants ahead of the world-famous event scheduled on October 5.The pregnancy gestation period in elephants is 18-21 months, and wildlife activists have slammed the foresters and mahouts for their negligence in bringing Lakshmi almost at the end of her gestation period to subject her to training since August 7 when she was brought to Mysuru in the first batch of nine jumbos for the training.
It was only on Tuesday afternoon at around 12.30 pm that the mahouts and kavadis noticed changes in Lakshmi’s behaviour, which showed discomfort. They informed the foresters and veterinarian who rushed to the spot and conducted a medical checkup. It was then that they suspected that Lakshmi might be pregnant and was suffering from labour pain.
The foresters collected her urine and faeces samples and sent it to a lab in Hyderabad for detecting pregnancy. Meanwhile, they shifted the elephant to a separate enclosure near Brahmapuri Gate of Mysuru Palace and monitored her health and behavior by restricting public entry.
Activists fume over ‘negligence’
However, around 8.10 pm, Lakshmi gave birth to a healthy calf. Deputy Conservator of Forest (Wildlife) V Karikalan, veterinarian Muzeeb-Ur-Rehman and Range Forest Officer Santhosh Hugar along with staff, mahouts and kavadis were present during the delivery.
A former wildlife warden from Mysuru, who requested anonymity, told The New Indian Express “In this case, both mahout and kavadi who handled Lakshmi, showed grave negligence in detecting her pregnancy even at such an advanced stage (movement of calf inside the womb). The foresters too have failed to find its pregnancy status during checkups before selecting them for Dasara procession,” he said. Animal activist Bhagyalakshmi said, “The pregnant elephant would have undergone grave stress during cannon firing drill. How can the veterinarian fail to detect a pregnancy in an elephant?” she said.
NAMING THE BUNDLE OF JOY
The Mysuru Palace Board is contemplating naming the calf ‘Ganapathi’, while corporator Lokesh (Piya) and a few associations have demanded that it be named ‘Srikantadatta’ after Srikantadatta Narashimaraja Wadiyar, the late scion of the erstwhile Mysuru royal family.