Elephants from Karnataka to join Dudhwa jumbos
LAKHIMPURKHERI: Elephants from the Bandipur National Park in Karnataka will soon join other pachyderms at the Dudhwa National Park here.
Deputy director, Dudhwa, Mahavir Kaujlagi said, “Two male and eight female elephants are being brought to Dudhwa.”
With the arrival of these 10 pachyderms, the total number of elephants at Dudhwa will reach 23. The 10 elephants left Karnataka for Dudhwa in specially designed 10 vehicles followed by two other vehicles with fodder and a team of veterinarians.
Dudhwa field director Sunil Kumar Chaudhary and deputy director Mahavir Kaujlagi are in Karnataka to look after the smooth transportation of the tuskers. Fifteen mahaouts from Karnataka will also arrive in Dudhwa along with the fleet of tuskers to bridge the language gap.
The tuskers from Karnataka will have to spend some months in Hindi learning classes at the base camp. They will be kept away from routine duties till they learn all Hindi instructions and gestures of the Dudhwa mahouts.
Kaujlagi said: “The Karnataka elephants understand only instructions in Kannad. However, in Dudhwa, they will have to follow instructions in Hindi.” “To bridge the gap, 15 ‘mahaouts’ from Dudhwa had been earlier sent to the Bandipur national park to receive a first hand knowledge of local instructions for elephants to be adapted in Hindi at Dudhwa,” he said. He added “15 mahouts from Karnataka were also invited to accompany the Karnataka tuskers in Dudhwa for language exchange.
“These mahouts will stay in Dudhwa till the tuskers fully adapt to the Dudhwa habitat and environment,” he said.
Dudhwa tuskers are assigned the task of patrolling the jungle area , tourist activities, monitoring the rhino area.
They are also deployed in operations to capture tigers and rhinos in and out of Dudhwa when the situation demands such a step.