SMALL MAN AND A BIG ANIMAL

  


  
 
Courtesy:Google Images

India is unique. True. Nowhere in the world elephants are worshiped and nowhere in the world they are made to beg, welcome  big men with garlands, dance, pull temple chariots and offer her blessings. This is simply cruelty personified.  If man believes in God, it's o.k. Why should he take the help of an elephant to reach God's abode?  Can't he walk. Thousands of such largest  animals on land are tortured in India.  They die on the railway tracks. They die due to the behavior of humans. This  has to be stopped immediately. Leave them in their habitat. Live and let live. Let us realize this earth belongs to them too. 

Temple elephants, it seems, are dying young in god's own country. A week ago four-year-old Chettuva Kannan, a popular elephant in Mokavoor-Ramanattukara area in Kozhikode, died due to acute stomach infection. Kannan was separated from his mother in Munnar when he was just five months old.

For the last four years he was ceaselessly paraded at annual mosque and temple festivals and even made to garland and salute local politicians at several valedictory functions in Kozhikode. The forest department received 47 complaints against this gross violation of Wildlife Act yet no action was taken. Kannan's death is not an isolated case.

In the last three years, 269 elephants lost their lives and, shockingly, a majority of them were below the age of 40. This year the death figure is already 13. Veterinary doctors with forest department who conduct post-mortems said that a majority of elephants died due to impaction, a medical term for blockage of digestive tracts of animals.

"Dietary change, long working hours and dehydration are some of the main reasons for impaction. We have found many elephants in a dehydrated state and left untreated for many weeks when they were supposed to get adequate rest after every festival,'' a senior veterinary doctor with the forest department said.

He said elephants should not be given sweets and dairy products, as they are hard to digest and leads to gastro problems. Activists point out that individual elephants owners who own around 60% of the 702 captive elephants have been violating many rules. "Elephants are not supposed to be paraded for festivals for more than six hours daily. But in a majority of cases they work for over 10-12 hours even during extreme summer, which causes dehydration,'' Elephant Lovers Association secretary V K Venkatachalam said.

The rules also say that not more than three elephants should be kept in a compound and they should not be made to walk more than 20 km every day, but these are often violated. Forest officials point out that there is urgent need to have doctors from the forest department conduct post-mortems of elephant that die at a relatively young age. As of now, most post-mortems are done by local doctors who favour elephant owners.

"This issue need to be probed thoroughly and only a detailed enquiry can reveal the exact reasons for the increase in the number of deaths,'' chief forest conservator of forest Raja Raja Verma said.

Venkatachalam also drew attention to the recent disturbing trend of taking elephants to neighbouring states. "Elephants from Kerala are used to push chariots and this puts huge stress on the forehead of the elephant. There was a recent instance when an elephant was forced to push a 12-tonne chariot at a Mariamman temple in Udumalai in Tamil Nadu,'' he said.

The fruitless efforts of tusker Ayyapankutty to get up from the swamp into which it fell after running amok at Edakochi on Thursday | Melton Antony

The temple elephant which had to jump into muddy waters to escape human harassment settled for eternal peace. 

A mahout tries to tie a rope around the 36-year-old tusker, Ayyappan, to haul it out of the swamp at Edakochi here on Thursday. Photos: Thulasi Kakkat

Kochi: Three women were killed when an elephant ran amok during a festival at Koottumadam temple at Rayamangalam near Perumbavoor on Sunday evening. Over 20 persons were injured in the commotion. The dead were identified as Naani, wife of Kuttappan of Muttathil House near Rayamangalam, Rama, wife of Ravi at Kurupampady, and Indira of Okkal.

Thechikkottukavu Ramachandran, the most admired elephant in the state, was the one that turned violent during the festival.

Sources said the elephant was in musth. It turned violent when a small elephant that was standing behind poked Ramachandran while entering the gate to the sanctum sanctorum. Ramachandran quickly ran towards the crowd. According to witnesses, the elephant caught up with Naani, who could not keep pace with the others, and trampled her to death. It then ran again to the crowd and gored to death two others. However, the mahouts brought the elephant under control within minutes.