‘Bringing 1,000 elephants to Jamnagar tends to make no sense’: Raman Sukumar
On March 14, the captive elephant’s future came to be ruled by new Rules—Captive Elephant (Transfer or Transportation) Regulations, 2024—that regulate their transfer from one particular Point out to an additional. One of the disorders is that entrepreneurs should post that they are no lengthier in a situation to retain the animal and that it have to be assured of greater upkeep than its present instances.
Below the new Regulations, the Chief Wildlife Warden of a State can permit the transportation of captive elephants inside of the Condition or involving States. The Rules are ambiguous in phrases of what enough services entail, how the animals will be transported, and more than what distance. Will the new actions assist elephants get a appropriate house at the forest department’s amenities (a additional conducive natural environment) if a non-public owner is incapable of caring for them? Conversely, will this abet the illegal trade of this Scheduled I species, as some conservationists concern?
To understand the implications of the new Policies, Frontline spoke to Raman Sukumar, the country’s primary elephant ecologist, an architect of Venture Elephant, former chair of the IUCN Asian Elephant Professional Team, the creator of several guides and scientific papers, and member of the standing committee of the Countrywide Board for Wildlife. Sukumar, who is presently an honorary professor at the Indian Institute of Science, also expressed his problems about the rehabilitation centre that anyone is talking about: Anant Ambani’s “Vantara”, a 3,000-acre area in Jamnagar, Gujarat, that will property hundreds of animals, which includes 200 elephants (reportedly, soon to be 1,000) and exotic species these kinds of as jaguars.
What are your major problems all around that the Captive Elephant (Transfer or Transportation) Guidelines, 2024? How will these new Principles impression the transfer of elephants to personal zoos, for instance?
The Regulations seem to have become contentious simply because there are fears that they may possibly encourage the illegal trade of elephants, like unauthorised captures from wild populations. About the transfer of elephants, the Procedures make it required for Chief Wildlife Wardens of the supply and recipient States to situation certificates that the transfer is genuine and important, and the animals should to have been registered with the business of the Main Wildlife Warden.
A genetic database of all captive elephants in the state is getting created at the Wildlife Institute of India. Genetic profiling is high-priced and may possibly be time consuming in contributing to the certification.
On paper, the safeguards ought to be capable to sufficiently suppress unlawful trade, but certainly any legislation is only as fantastic as its implementation. My principal problem would be the massive-scale transfer of the captive elephant population from their locations of origin to other regions of the nation in which their conservation part would be questionable. This would include things like elephants in so-known as spiritual establishments or facilities simply for exhibiting them.
Elephants lined up at the annual “Aanayoottu” feast at a temple in Thrissur, Kerala. K.K. NAJEEB
| Photograph Credit history:
K.K. NAJEEB
Anant Ambani’s rehabilitation centre in Jamnagar, Gujarat, has appear underneath criticism for all the things from the unsuitability of the habitat for elephants to the distance they have had to vacation. What are your sights on the facility?
My knowledge of Vantara is based mostly totally on what I have browse in the media about their collection of numerous animals and the facilities they have developed at Jamnagar for this rescue/rehabilitation centre or zoo. I shall adhere to their assortment of elephants, which is now reported to exceed 200 and is reportedly relocating to a target of 1,000.
When you look at that India has about 2,600 captive elephants, Vantara’s goal, if genuine, would signify 40 for each cent of the country’s captive populace.
By all accounts, Vantara has established prime-course services (temperature-managed housing, hospitals, and veterinary treatment) for the repairs of elephants in captivity. Some even say this exceeds any elephant care facility in the environment. The 1st reaction would be to check with, “What’s wrong with producing a facility that caters to the welfare of large quantities of ill, hurt, diseased, or abused elephants”?
First, Jamnagar in the western extremity of the nation is outside the house the historical variety of the elephant except you go back to Harappan moments. The weather in summer months is merely unsuited to Asian elephants, while temperature-managed housing for hundreds of elephants would consume enormous quantities of vitality.
Next, transporting elephants throughout prolonged distances is fraught with its very own problems. I remember there ended up controversies some years in the past about taking elephants from the north-east to Gujarat across the northern plains all through peak summer when temperatures routinely exceed 40°C.
The function of the captive elephant in present-day India goes substantially further than that of remaining a creature simply to be cared for or exhibited to the general public for its iconic or sacred status. Captive elephants can perform an vital element in the management of our forests and protected spots. Perfectly-trained kumki elephants are wonderful assets or even indispensable in the mitigation of conflicts amongst wild elephants and individuals, a phenomenon that is only escalating around time.
The best ailments to sustain captive elephants are those people obtainable at forest camps where by they have obtain to their purely natural habitats. The elephant camps in States such as Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, West Bengal, and Assam symbolize the excellent circumstance, even if they are now experiencing challenges and troubles (for instance, hurt to forests by captive elephants, erosion of regular expertise in elephant husbandry, and so on).
Organic research on elephants is also a lot more scientifically authentic in these problems. A lot more importantly, forest camp elephants are repositories of indigenous understanding units of elephants: the biggest contribution of the Oscar-winning The Elephant Whisperers was to emphasise the deep bonds in between tribal people and elephants, typically dismissed or even derided.
With the massive money methods available, Vantara could possibly have been a recreation changer for captive and most likely even wild elephants in the state if they had adopted a additional all-encompassing vision. To me, bringing 200 or 1,000 elephants to Jamnagar will make no feeling.
They can unquestionably keep some elephants, possibly in the number of tens, but over and above that variety, even with the most effective facilities, they would experience enormous issues in the social management of elephants. I have witnessed how zoos in the West or even temples in Kerala have struggled with running bull elephants in musth.
How would hundreds of elephants at a one spot add to the overall conservation of the species in the region? Vantara could have developed a more regionally dispersed technique of captive elephant services either on their personal or in partnership with other institutions, together with temples and forest departments, to improve the ailments for our heritage animal.
Exactly where feasible, captive elephant management could have been built-in with the administration of wild elephant populations and their habitats, which should really be the final purpose.
A mahout bathes an elephant at a temple in Kochi, Kerala.
| Picture Credit rating:
THULASI KAKKAT
You have stated domesticated elephants “need to receive their livelihood”. Could you reveal?
The 4,000-yr record of elephant-human engagement in India has been a marriage of contrasts: the capture of quite big numbers by kings for use in armies, the deification of the animal in Buddhism and Hinduism, the slaughter of bulls for ivory, the conflicts with agriculture.
With the cessation of the immediate role of the elephant in war by the late Mughal period, the captive elephant took on a new primary function in India and Burma throughout colonial rule, particularly, as a draught animal to extract teak and other timber species from tropical forests.
With the enactment of the Wild Lifetime (Protection) Act, 1972, the systematic capture of elephants declined sharply in India. The ban on logging, imposed in 1996 by the Supreme Court docket, threw many “timber elephants” out of a job, primarily in the north-east.
In southern States these types of as Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, captive elephants ended up largely retained in forest camps by the Point out Forest Division hence, it was easier for them to assign a new role for these animals in wildlife tourism in nationwide parks and wildlife sanctuaries.
I ought to mention here that the timber elephants of Thailand went by way of a very similar predicament with the ban on logging in the place adhering to the devastating floods of 1989. Most of these elephants ended up “out of work” and had been pressured to receive their dwelling by begging on the streets of Bangkok or by welcoming attendees to inns in Chiang Mai.
Coming back again to India, the use of elephants for using tourists within shielded areas has also been discontinued in several States for numerous explanations. There is a desire for elephants from temples, but these establishments are not in a placement, or are unwilling, to fork out suitable interest to the animal’s welfare.
Maintaining solitary woman elephants in temples in Tamil Nadu is cruel as these are hugely social creatures, although the parading of big figures of bull elephants during festivals in Kerala is evidently unwanted.
The captive elephant in India consequently faces a severe disaster of identification. This has resulted in the neglect of captive elephant welfare. A additional in depth motion program is necessary on how to deal with the around 2,600 elephants in captivity in the country and flip them into conservation belongings.
We want to deal with what I would term the “four pillars” of captive elephant management: seize (scientific procedures), coaching (applying far more humane methods), husbandry (a variety of challenges relating to nutrition, veterinary treatment, and housing), and their use (what is essential and suitable in today’s entire world).
Also Study | Why the tiger-human conflict rages in Bandipur and Nagarahole
Is it not anachronistic to keep on to seize wild elephants and cultivate them?
It would be anachronistic to continue to seize wild elephants with the sole purpose of “domesticating” them and place them to human use. I must increase listed here that elephants have hardly ever been domesticated in the real perception of the phrase but, fairly, have constantly been captured, experienced, and preserved in captivity.
Nevertheless, we have to experience the actuality that the wild elephant inhabitants of India has improved considerably in some regions about the past 40 to 50 decades without [it] necessarily attaining extra “undisturbed” place.
Certainly, in numerous regions they have missing natural habitat in recent a long time: the massive deforestation in the Sonitpur region of Assam during the 1990s or the unfold of mining in east-central States.
Conflicts involving elephants and folks have been steadily raising in the latest a long time and have achieved unacceptable amounts in numerous spots due to the fact of array expansion by elephants from pure lands to agricultural landscapes.
Both equally elephants and men and women go through from these conflicts, with massive figures of elephants dying of unnatural causes and various hundred people acquiring killed every single calendar year by these animals. Decades of mitigation steps have largely failed.
Therefore, the capture of some elephants is inevitable and essential until eventually a lot more prolonged-lasting alternatives to conflict are uncovered. The selective capture of wild elephants, mainly male elephants, has been ongoing in some States. On the other hand, a lot of States do not want the burden of taking care of a lot more captive elephants or do not have ample potential to do so.
Unfortunately, in put up-Independence India, the elephant, a creature which has co-advanced with modern humans in the subcontinent and shared a distinctive marriage, has not gained enough notice or methods for conservation as opposed to, say, the tiger.
On March 14, the captive elephant’s future came to be ruled by new Rules—Captive Elephant (Transfer or Transportation) Regulations, 2024—that regulate their transfer from one particular Point out to an additional. One of the disorders is that entrepreneurs should post that they are no lengthier in a situation to retain the animal and that it have to be assured of greater upkeep than its present instances.
Below the new Regulations, the Chief Wildlife Warden of a State can permit the transportation of captive elephants inside of the Condition or involving States. The Rules are ambiguous in phrases of what enough services entail, how the animals will be transported, and more than what distance. Will the new actions assist elephants get a appropriate house at the forest department’s amenities (a additional conducive natural environment) if a non-public owner is incapable of caring for them? Conversely, will this abet the illegal trade of this Scheduled I species, as some conservationists concern?
To understand the implications of the new Policies, Frontline spoke to Raman Sukumar, the country’s primary elephant ecologist, an architect of Venture Elephant, former chair of the IUCN Asian Elephant Professional Team, the creator of several guides and scientific papers, and member of the standing committee of the Countrywide Board for Wildlife. Sukumar, who is presently an honorary professor at the Indian Institute of Science, also expressed his problems about the rehabilitation centre that anyone is talking about: Anant Ambani’s “Vantara”, a 3,000-acre area in Jamnagar, Gujarat, that will property hundreds of animals, which includes 200 elephants (reportedly, soon to be 1,000) and exotic species these kinds of as jaguars.
What are your major problems all around that the Captive Elephant (Transfer or Transportation) Guidelines, 2024? How will these new Principles impression the transfer of elephants to personal zoos, for instance?
The Regulations seem to have become contentious simply because there are fears that they may possibly encourage the illegal trade of elephants, like unauthorised captures from wild populations. About the transfer of elephants, the Procedures make it required for Chief Wildlife Wardens of the supply and recipient States to situation certificates that the transfer is genuine and important, and the animals should to have been registered with the business of the Main Wildlife Warden.
A genetic database of all captive elephants in the state is getting created at the Wildlife Institute of India. Genetic profiling is high-priced and may possibly be time consuming in contributing to the certification.
On paper, the safeguards ought to be capable to sufficiently suppress unlawful trade, but certainly any legislation is only as fantastic as its implementation. My principal problem would be the massive-scale transfer of the captive elephant population from their locations of origin to other regions of the nation in which their conservation part would be questionable. This would include things like elephants in so-known as spiritual establishments or facilities simply for exhibiting them.
Elephants lined up at the annual “Aanayoottu” feast at a temple in Thrissur, Kerala. K.K. NAJEEB
| Photograph Credit history:
K.K. NAJEEB
Anant Ambani’s rehabilitation centre in Jamnagar, Gujarat, has appear underneath criticism for all the things from the unsuitability of the habitat for elephants to the distance they have had to vacation. What are your sights on the facility?
My knowledge of Vantara is based mostly totally on what I have browse in the media about their collection of numerous animals and the facilities they have developed at Jamnagar for this rescue/rehabilitation centre or zoo. I shall adhere to their assortment of elephants, which is now reported to exceed 200 and is reportedly relocating to a target of 1,000.
When you look at that India has about 2,600 captive elephants, Vantara’s goal, if genuine, would signify 40 for each cent of the country’s captive populace.
By all accounts, Vantara has established prime-course services (temperature-managed housing, hospitals, and veterinary treatment) for the repairs of elephants in captivity. Some even say this exceeds any elephant care facility in the environment. The 1st reaction would be to check with, “What’s wrong with producing a facility that caters to the welfare of large quantities of ill, hurt, diseased, or abused elephants”?
First, Jamnagar in the western extremity of the nation is outside the house the historical variety of the elephant except you go back to Harappan moments. The weather in summer months is merely unsuited to Asian elephants, while temperature-managed housing for hundreds of elephants would consume enormous quantities of vitality.
Next, transporting elephants throughout prolonged distances is fraught with its very own problems. I remember there ended up controversies some years in the past about taking elephants from the north-east to Gujarat across the northern plains all through peak summer when temperatures routinely exceed 40°C.
The function of the captive elephant in present-day India goes substantially further than that of remaining a creature simply to be cared for or exhibited to the general public for its iconic or sacred status. Captive elephants can perform an vital element in the management of our forests and protected spots. Perfectly-trained kumki elephants are wonderful assets or even indispensable in the mitigation of conflicts amongst wild elephants and individuals, a phenomenon that is only escalating around time.
The best ailments to sustain captive elephants are those people obtainable at forest camps where by they have obtain to their purely natural habitats. The elephant camps in States such as Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, West Bengal, and Assam symbolize the excellent circumstance, even if they are now experiencing challenges and troubles (for instance, hurt to forests by captive elephants, erosion of regular expertise in elephant husbandry, and so on).
Organic research on elephants is also a lot more scientifically authentic in these problems. A lot more importantly, forest camp elephants are repositories of indigenous understanding units of elephants: the biggest contribution of the Oscar-winning The Elephant Whisperers was to emphasise the deep bonds in between tribal people and elephants, typically dismissed or even derided.
With the massive money methods available, Vantara could possibly have been a recreation changer for captive and most likely even wild elephants in the state if they had adopted a additional all-encompassing vision. To me, bringing 200 or 1,000 elephants to Jamnagar will make no feeling.
They can unquestionably keep some elephants, possibly in the number of tens, but over and above that variety, even with the most effective facilities, they would experience enormous issues in the social management of elephants. I have witnessed how zoos in the West or even temples in Kerala have struggled with running bull elephants in musth.
How would hundreds of elephants at a one spot add to the overall conservation of the species in the region? Vantara could have developed a more regionally dispersed technique of captive elephant services either on their personal or in partnership with other institutions, together with temples and forest departments, to improve the ailments for our heritage animal.
Exactly where feasible, captive elephant management could have been built-in with the administration of wild elephant populations and their habitats, which should really be the final purpose.
A mahout bathes an elephant at a temple in Kochi, Kerala.
| Picture Credit rating:
THULASI KAKKAT
You have stated domesticated elephants “need to receive their livelihood”. Could you reveal?
The 4,000-yr record of elephant-human engagement in India has been a marriage of contrasts: the capture of quite big numbers by kings for use in armies, the deification of the animal in Buddhism and Hinduism, the slaughter of bulls for ivory, the conflicts with agriculture.
With the cessation of the immediate role of the elephant in war by the late Mughal period, the captive elephant took on a new primary function in India and Burma throughout colonial rule, particularly, as a draught animal to extract teak and other timber species from tropical forests.
With the enactment of the Wild Lifetime (Protection) Act, 1972, the systematic capture of elephants declined sharply in India. The ban on logging, imposed in 1996 by the Supreme Court docket, threw many “timber elephants” out of a job, primarily in the north-east.
In southern States these types of as Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, captive elephants ended up largely retained in forest camps by the Point out Forest Division hence, it was easier for them to assign a new role for these animals in wildlife tourism in nationwide parks and wildlife sanctuaries.
I ought to mention here that the timber elephants of Thailand went by way of a very similar predicament with the ban on logging in the place adhering to the devastating floods of 1989. Most of these elephants ended up “out of work” and had been pressured to receive their dwelling by begging on the streets of Bangkok or by welcoming attendees to inns in Chiang Mai.
Coming back again to India, the use of elephants for using tourists within shielded areas has also been discontinued in several States for numerous explanations. There is a desire for elephants from temples, but these establishments are not in a placement, or are unwilling, to fork out suitable interest to the animal’s welfare.
Maintaining solitary woman elephants in temples in Tamil Nadu is cruel as these are hugely social creatures, although the parading of big figures of bull elephants during festivals in Kerala is evidently unwanted.
The captive elephant in India consequently faces a severe disaster of identification. This has resulted in the neglect of captive elephant welfare. A additional in depth motion program is necessary on how to deal with the around 2,600 elephants in captivity in the country and flip them into conservation belongings.
We want to deal with what I would term the “four pillars” of captive elephant management: seize (scientific procedures), coaching (applying far more humane methods), husbandry (a variety of challenges relating to nutrition, veterinary treatment, and housing), and their use (what is essential and suitable in today’s entire world).
Also Study | Why the tiger-human conflict rages in Bandipur and Nagarahole
Is it not anachronistic to keep on to seize wild elephants and cultivate them?
It would be anachronistic to continue to seize wild elephants with the sole purpose of “domesticating” them and place them to human use. I must increase listed here that elephants have hardly ever been domesticated in the real perception of the phrase but, fairly, have constantly been captured, experienced, and preserved in captivity.
Nevertheless, we have to experience the actuality that the wild elephant inhabitants of India has improved considerably in some regions about the past 40 to 50 decades without [it] necessarily attaining extra “undisturbed” place.
Certainly, in numerous regions they have missing natural habitat in recent a long time: the massive deforestation in the Sonitpur region of Assam during the 1990s or the unfold of mining in east-central States.
Conflicts involving elephants and folks have been steadily raising in the latest a long time and have achieved unacceptable amounts in numerous spots due to the fact of array expansion by elephants from pure lands to agricultural landscapes.
Both equally elephants and men and women go through from these conflicts, with massive figures of elephants dying of unnatural causes and various hundred people acquiring killed every single calendar year by these animals. Decades of mitigation steps have largely failed.
Therefore, the capture of some elephants is inevitable and essential until eventually a lot more prolonged-lasting alternatives to conflict are uncovered. The selective capture of wild elephants, mainly male elephants, has been ongoing in some States. On the other hand, a lot of States do not want the burden of taking care of a lot more captive elephants or do not have ample potential to do so.
Unfortunately, in put up-Independence India, the elephant, a creature which has co-advanced with modern humans in the subcontinent and shared a distinctive marriage, has not gained enough notice or methods for conservation as opposed to, say, the tiger.
