Free the Captive Elephants
Dear All,
I am sure most of you would not be aware about the plight of the elephants held captive by private owners or temples. I am sharing an article published in Indian Express on 20th Nov 2009. This article documents just a few cases of the torture that a captive elephant endures.
It is time to free our elephants from captivity. The maker has designed them to be free. Let them roam free.
Sabyasachi
Jumbo stress on Elephants
A Satish and R AyyappanFirst Published : 20 Nov 2009 11:22:48 AM ISTLast Updated : 20 Nov 2009 11:52:07 AM IST
ELEPHANTINE CRUELTIES
Tuskers made to walk from place to place.
Lorries not used to transport them.
Made to stand in the hot sun.
No thought given to their fatigue and injury.
TORTUROUS TALES
Kalpathy Kesavan, who succumbed to injuries in Palakkad on November 17, is the fourth captive elephant to die of human torture in the last one-and-a-half months.
Sooryan, a 48-year-old tusker, was found dead in a private plot at Mulankunnathukavu in Thrissur on October 3. Both its hind and forelegs had three-year-old wounds that were never tended to. Its underbelly had puss-filled welts, a clear sign of severe torture. Its toenails had fallen off.
Manikantan, a 42-year-old tusker, was found dead in the house of an elephant contractor at Pattambi, Palakkad, on October 10. It was transported from Alappuzha a month ago, reportedly without permission.
The beast had deep torture marks on its body. Its toenails had come off, proof that the infection on the legs were never cared for.
Pullukulangara Ganeshan, another 42- year-old tusker, was found dead on the premises of the Pullukulangara Dharmasastha Temple, Alappuzha on October 14. The beast died as a result of an internal shock suffered during the ‘familiarisation beating’ unleashed on it by the new mahout using a ‘valiyakol’, a long controlling stick.
THE LATEST ABUSE
Venue: The Kalpathy car festival.
Tusker Kallekulangara Rajashekharan and Mangalamkunnu Ramachandran perform the ritualistic tugging of chariots through the streets
Devotees pull the chariots from the front The pachyderms push the chariot from behind. Sacks are tied to their forehead.The animals often bend to push the chariot.
No temple festival in Kerala is complete without the grand procession of elephants. Caparisoned elephants used for ‘ezhunnellippu’ ritual speaks about the grandeur of the fest. But many a time, these majestic mammals are treated inhumanly, says A Satish and R Ayyappan.
The cut was just the leftover of an injury which occurred when the elephant was caught from the forests. Efforts were made to suture it but the lack of proper treatment led to infection which proved fatal says M A Parameswaran, elephant owner.
The source article can be found here:
http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/s.../zSOp7A=&type=
Kerala becoming graveyard for jumbos?
Mahouts’ cruelty, owners’ greed, diseases killed 81 elephants in 2009 -
Kerala is known for its people’s love for elephants but reports now indicate that it is fast becoming a graveyard of the pachyderms due to ill-treatment by mahouts, greed of owners and undiagnosed illnesses. As many as 81 tamed elephants died in 2009 in Kerala. The tamed elephant population in the State is put at 700.
Elephant-lovers say that the main reason for the shocking death rate is the owners’ eagerness to put the animals through any hard situations to earn money. They also say that the condition of elephants would now grow worse with the start of the season of festivals at temples where processions by elephants are unavoidable.
The most appalling fact about the huge number of deaths is that 78 of the 81 pachyderms that died last year were between 19 and 38 years of age, according to Thrissur-based Elephant Lover’s Forum. The average lifespan of a tamed elephant is said to be 60 years. “It is obvious that most of these deaths are not due to natural causes,” says Peethambaran Nair, an elephant-lover in Thrissur.
“The simple truth is that elephants here are tortured throughout their lives. Mahouts torture them for simple reasons. Owners allow the torture so that they could be put to work without delay. To save money, they economise on food and medical care. Elephant-rearing for most of the owners is business and whenever the business becomes dull, they lose interest in animals,” Nair said.
Just a month ago, Prakash Sankar, a young elephant in Guruvayur, died after month-long health complications that followed severe torture by tamers and mahouts. During this period, the elephant had lived in severe pain from the hack and stab injuries it suffered during the tamers’ gruesome efforts to bring it out of musth so that it could be put to work before the festival season started.
Activists of the Elephant Lovers’ Forum say that there is a tendency among the owners to let the weak pachyderms die so that they could easily access the insurance money, which normally comes to Rs 6 lakh. “A grown-up elephant normally would fetch a price of between Rs 25 lakh and Rs 30 lakh. But once the elephant becomes weak or shows symptoms of the after-effects of torture, you just cannot sell it. In this context, owners invariably adopt a strategy of letting the animal die slowly,” says an elephant-lover.
Laws stipulate that an elephant should undergo treatment under a veterinary doctor for at least 15 continuous days when it falls ill. Also, insurance reimbursement is not done in cases where the elephants die of certain diseases. But, elephant-owners say there are ways to overcome such stipulation. “Corruption among vets and Forest department officials is one of the reasons behind the sad state-of-affairs,” PR Mohanan, a former mahout, said.
However, most owners say that they are keeping their elephants not as a business but out of love. According to former Minister KB Ganesh Kumar, president of the Elephant Owners’ Association, most of the allegations about maltreatment of the animals are baseless.
Link - http://www.dailypioneer.com/228534/K...or-jumbos.html
