Environment Ministry allows West Bengal govt to capture wild elephants despite ban
India | Updated Jul 28, 2012 at 09:06pm IST
Environment Ministry allows West Bengal govt to capture wild elephants despite ban
New Delhi: Taming a wild elephant is not easy. Neither for the tamer, nor for the animal itself. The elephant is first chained and then mercilessly beaten till it gives in. However, the Environment Ministry has given the West Bengal government permission to do precisely this.
An RTI application filed by CNN-IBN revealed that the Environment Ministry gave the go-ahead for the capture of four wild elephants that had been destroying crops in south Bengal.
Environmentalists, however, allege that such random capturing of elephants is no solution to the problem.
"Capturing en masse doesn't reduce conflict. What in fact happens is that the herd structure is disturbed and it may lead to more conflict," says environmentalist Ashok Kumar.
What is worse is that the ministry's order violates its own wildlife laws.
Section 11 of the Wildlife Protection Act (amendment 1993) clearly states that no captured animal like an elephant shall be kept in captivity unless the Chief Wildlife Warden is satisfied that such an animal cannot be rehabilitated in the wild.
Ironically, the Chief Widllife Warden in the letter to the West Bengal government states that the wild elephants should be captured because West Bengal is running out of captive elephants.
The West Bengal state government has already released tenders for the capture of the wild elephants. The big question is how did the Environment Ministry at the Centre allow the trapping of wild elephants in violation of wildlife laws?
Elephant capture plan put on hold in Bengal
Elephant capture plan put on hold in Bengal
Aug 15, 2012, 06.12PM IST
NEW DELHI: Earlier in this year, the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) had granted permission for the capture of four elephants in areas affected by elephant-human conflict. Late last week the capture was put on hold as the MoEF put its permission on "abeyance".
South Bengal districts such as Purulia and Singhbhum, which are a part of the "elephant corridors" of the state, have earlier reported incidents of human deaths and destruction of crops due to conflict of habitation with the pachyderms.
The forest department of the state had sought permission to capture four elephants from the herd in September as a preventive measure to keep them from returning. MoEF officials say the feedback they received suggested the forest department planned to capture sub-adult elephants whereas the permission was granted only for "problematic elephants". "We need more scientific methods to solve this problem. We can seek help from a number of experts on this," said a senior official in the MoEF who did not wish to be named.
There are currently 88 elephant corridors in the country, and close to 14 of them exist in Bengal. Vivek Menon, executive director, Wildlife Trust of India says these elephants are "ecological refugees". "One can't stop elephant movements. Landscape changes due to mining in Jharkhand have affected their habitat. The issue is that of space. There is no single point solution to this. Capturing is a solution only if you capture all of them, and that isn't possible. We need to come up with a more holistic solution. West Bengal currently has a chance to show the rest of the country a way to deal with this problem," says Menon.
