U’khand plans jumbo boost to elephant safari in tiger den
After bringing nine elephants from Karnataka for Corbett Tiger Reserve, the Uttarakhand forest department plans to bring 12 more elephants for Rajaji Tiger Reserve for safari and patrolling duties.
Brought in February, the nine elephants are being trained at Corbett for patrolling purposes. It took nearly one week for officers to bring the elephants from the southern state to Uttarakhand. A dozen mahouts from Karnataka are training the elephant herd in Corbett.
Corbett had seven elephants of which three are old and not fit enough for patrol duties.
There is a similar plan to bring elephants for Rajaji from the South to add to the three pachyderms deployed for safari and patrolling. “As elephant safari is star attraction of our reserve, it will be an asset to have more number elephants,” Rajaji director Sanatan Sonkar said.
“We have a plan to bring 12 more elephants from Karnataka for Rajaji,” chief wildlife warden Digvijay Singh Khati told HT.
Karnataka is the first choice for the forest department to bring elephants. There were over 5,600 elephants in the southern state, as per a census conducted under Project Elephant of 2010. In addition, elephants are mainly domesticated there with families working as mahouts since ages. This tradition is missing in Uttarakhand where there were 1,797 elephants in the wild, as per a survey in 2015, but no domesticated pachyderms.
Once the proposal is finalized, the forest department will seek permission from Central Zoo Authority (CZA) and ministry of environment, forest and climate change. According to insiders, UP too has sought similar permission to bring elephants. The elephants are mainly chosen from Bandipur and Bannerghatta in Karnataka. The elephants will be transported for nearly 2,500 km covering Karnataka, Telangana, Maharashtra and UP before reaching the state.