BENGALURU: Many people are keen to photograph wildlife, especially elephants, be it in captivity, in conflict or in the wild. But these stress the animals, in some cases it becomes one of the reasons for conflict.
After the recent incident where two tuskers ran amok near the Mysuru Palace, forest, environment and ecology department minister Eshwar B Khandre on Monday, issued orders to forest department officials to ensure people do not take photographs, selfies or videos with elephants camping in Mysuru Palace for the Dasara festivities.
In the order, the minister said pictures of people holding the elephants’ tusks, ears or other body parts, even hugging the trunk are circulated on social media. The government has taken serious note of this. It has been observed that forest staffers and authorities also allow photoshoots and make reels near elephants. Due to this, elephants get stressed and leads to accidents, similar to the recent one.
Khandre also ordered the forest department to ensure such things do not repeat. They must ensure elephants brought from camps are safely taken back.
A senior forest department official said, “Clicking photographs has been happening for a long time. Banning it is good, but implementing on ground is difficult, as people play gimmicks and mahouts and kavadis also stretch for an extra buck. Usually, when people are allowed near elephants like to bathe or feed, the elephant is always guarded by its mahout.”
This is the first time such an incident has happened where they have come out of the gates and barricaded. Around five years back, there was an incident where Arjun, the howdah elephant, had got agitated. “Arjun was one who did not like people standing in front of him or crowding before him. A man had come close to Arjun to take a photograph when his mahout or kavadi were not around, this had agitated him. Elephants also do not like people touching their ear or coming close to their ear. They get uncomfortable. But people do not understand this,” the official recollected.
The palace at present houses 16 elephants- 14 department elephants, of which four are females. There are two female palace elephants that are housed with the forest department camp elephants. After the incident, the department has increased the security staff apart from the 10 CCTV cameras.