GURUVAYUR: The incident of an elephant in musth damaging four out of the eight angle iron pillars of Punathur Kottai on Saturday has kicked up a row with a section of animal lovers raising doubts about the safety of the pachyderms tethered inside such shelters in the state.
Guruvayur Devaswom’s elephant Gajarathnam Padmanabhan damaged the angle iron posts of the elephant shelter made by reportedly spending several lakh.
Devaswom officials on Sunday removed the entire shelter using a crane considering the safety of the elephant.
Sources in the sanctuary told ‘Express’ that for an elephant like Padmanabhan, who is over 75 years of age, some space must be provided in condition of ‘musth’, much more than is given to other elephants, while being kept in a shelter.
“When the elephant got agitated, it pushed against the pillars causing severe damage to the shelter, on Saturday. This violence prompted the officials to remove the shed completely. But, it is unusual in the sanctuary for the elephants to damage the pillars as the pillars are very strong. Besides that, the mahouts and the officials here have now realised that for aged elephants like Padmanabhan, the shelters of a larger size than usual are needed,” sources said.
Heritage Animal Task Force secretary V K Venkitachalam said that the elephant shelter was built spending not less than `15 lakh and the engineers concerned need to be accounted for the failure of the structure, which was built only one-and-a-half years ago.
Venkitachalam further said that it is mandatory to provide shelters for captive elephants to protect them from sun and rain. “But at the sanctuary, which presently has 63 pachyderms in its care, there are only eight shelters available for the elephants. At the time of construction of this particular shelter, the mahouts had asked for more space for the elephant inside it, but he engineers did not heed to their request,” he said.
Heritage Task Force has sent a complaint in this regard to Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, Devaswom Commissioner, Animal Welfare Board of India, Chennai and Chief Wildlife Warden, Kerala Forest and Wildlife Department.
The complaint states that 63 elephants are tethered inside 18 acres of land in the sanctuary without any provision to move with ease or to submerge its body in flowing water.
As per the guidelines of Zoo Authority of India, any place used to keep an elephant in captivity must have a minimum space of 1.5 hectares for each of such elephants.
Guruvayur Devaswom, which collect money from sale of tickets to the visitors of the elephant sanctuary, just like any Zoo in India, must have a minimum of 198 acres of land for 63 elephants, the complaint said.
