Elephants ‘revolt’ forces UP to invoke law to protect tuskers

Feb 22, 2010: A dozen wild elephants attack a village in Pallia Kalan area near the Dudhwa National Park in Lakhimpur Kheri district of Uttar Pradesh. Several houses are damaged and crops destroyed. One person trampled.

Feb 23, 2010: A herd of about 35 wild elephants from the Royal Bardia National Park in Nepal goes on rampage in villages adjoining the Katarniaghat wildlife sanctuary in border district of Bahraich in east UP. Two people are trampled, several houses and crops damaged.

Feb 24, 2010: A domesticated elephant runs amok at a VIP wedding on the Delhi-Dehradun highway in Meerut. The pachyderm, that apparently lost its cool due to celebratory firing and VIP car-hooters, went on a 20-hour rampage, leaving behind a trail of trampled vehicles, uprooted trees and injured passers-by.

The above incidents which occurred in quick succession sent alarm bells ringing among top forest officials in UP.

On Sunday, the UP Forest Department (UPFD) invoked the Wildlife Protection Act to issue a government order that any harassment of domesticated wild animals kept under licence would invite strict punishment and penalties. The UPFD is also considering an in-depth study on the state of elephants.

Experts feel a fresh look at the pachyderms’ plight is imperative. “We worship elephants in the form of Lord Ganesha, but in actual life, we don’t show the same respect to the animal,” well-known elephant conservationist Mike Pande said. Uncontrolled deforestation and expansion of farmlands have destroyed large swathes of elephant habitats, he said.

This is the reason why there has been a sudden rise in elephant attacks in the country, especially in south and north-east India, which account for the maximum number of elephants, he said.
UP forest minister Fateh Bahadur Singh told ‘DNA’ that his department is planning to conduct an elaborate study on elephants. “Such incidents are shocking… it seems the elephants are a troubled lot and they are trying to draw our attention to their problems,” he said. The UPFD is taking steps to ensure adequate food, shelter and medical facilities to the beasts kept under licence, the minister said.

India has an estimated population of about 30,000 elephants. While the majority stays in the wild, a large number of these animals are domesticated and used for various tasks, including tourism, transporting heavy material, and in religious rituals and marriage processions.

“It is not these animals but us humans who are to blame for this sorry state of affairs,” UP’s former chief wildlife warden and renowned forester Ram Lakhan Singh said.