THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Ahead of the festival season, the state has decided to strengthen the district-level elephant squads by including vets selected from the animal husbandry department. These vets will be given training in darting jumbos. They will be responsible for tranquillising elephants in case they run amok at the festival venues.
The festival season across Kerala was completely washed out in 2020 and this year with the government banning all festivals in the wake of the Covid outbreak. Speaking to TNIE, animal husbandry department director A Kowsigan said this is a routine process in the state. “But in the last two seasons, there were no festivals owing to the pandemic. Now, we have decided to strengthen the elephant squads as the festival season is round the corner.”
The selected vets would be imparted training at Kerala Veterinary College and Animal Sciences in darting unruly elephants with tranquilliser guns. “Further, these vets will be assigned the task of issuing fitness certificates to the elephants before the festival procession. They will examine the elephants before the festivals to ascertain whether they have any ‘musth’ symptoms or wounds. Only the jumbos having fitness certificates as mandated by the Kerala Captive Elephants (Management and Maintenance) Rules will be allowed to be paraded,” he said.
Despite the Covid-induced rest period for them, the state witnessed the death of 24 captive jumbos so far this year, while the number of deaths was 20 each in 2020 and 2019. The vets who have gone on deputation to the forest department have been treating elephants that have ailments.
V K Venkitachalam, secretary of the Heritage Animal Task Force, in a petition to the director of Project Elephant, Union Ministry of Environment and Forests, said the high death rate among the captive elephants in Kerala despite the absence of festivals pointed to the torture, neglect and experimental veterinary treatment meted out to them. Requesting an investigation into the death of these elephants, he said the state forest department or animal husbandry department has no idea of the experimental veterinary treatment being given to the elephants by some mahouts or unskilled vets.
“The elephant census carried out by Kerala on November 30, 2018 put the number of captive elephants in the state at 521. If we count the deaths that happened after the census, the actual number is now 454. Some urgent intervention is required to save the remaining captive jumbos,” he said.
To ensure safety