Forest dept allowing commercial exploitation of elephants, rights activist tells chief secy
NEW DELHI: A city-based animal rights campaigner has written to the chief secretary about the Delhi forest department allowing “illegal” commercial exploitation of elephants.
In the letter, the animal rights activist has alleged that Laxmi, one of the city’s six domestic elephants suffering from herpes, was made to walk 25 kilometres to be displayed at a wedding function held at a hotel in Gurugram on February 14.
“The elephant was made to walk at least 25 km on tarred roads. This amounts to blatant and illegal commercial use of captive elephants. Despite several calls to report the incident, Delhi’s chief wildlife warden remained unavailable,” read the letter dated February 15.
Gauri Maulekhi, the animal rights activist and member of the National Institute of Animal Welfare, also said the conditions in which the elephants are kept and the commercial use is not being monitored by the department, amounting to violation of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.
The Act prohibits public display of schedule-i animals, including elephants, other than in a licensed zoo. “Commercial use of elephants continues despite public health risk associated with herpes — a zoonotic virus that can be transmitted to humans,” the letter read.
The letter added that forest officials responsible must be suspended for their failure.
“Two of the city’s six elephants — Laxmi and Chandni — were diagnosed with herpes last year by the Uttarakhand forest department... However, these animals are not being given due medical care and are being continuously put to commercial use,” Maulekhi said.
Denying the allegations, a senior forest department official said, “The activities are monitored regularly. The department will issue a notice to the custodian in case of any violations.”
Delhi had a total of seven domestic elephants, of which three were recently sent to a trust in Gujarat while a female elephant owned by the chairman of a private company continues to live in Delhi. For the remaining three elephants, the department had, earlier this month, written to its counterparts in Madhya Pradesh, Haryana and Uttarakhand, asking them if they could house the animals. The elephants had to be shifted out of Delhi as the city does not provide a natural habitat to house these animals. The Delhi High Court had asked the forest department to relocate them.
Yusuf Ali, who owns two of these elephants, including 41-year-old Laxmi, said he does use the animals for events to make a living. “My family has been raising elephants since 1950s while the Act came in 1972. It is only over the past years that the government has been curbing our rights. This is not the rule in other states...” Ali said, adding, “Why should we let the animals be taken away?”
Earlier this month, a petition was filed in the high court, citing there are no wildlife rescue centres in the city and animals in distress are not given medical assistance in time.
“Commercial use of animals is a serious issue. The government must make budgetary allocation for housing these animals. Elephants are the largest nomadic animals but they are conditioned to move in wilderness and not on tarred roads. Even in forests, they need a corridor to move around. Forest authorities must think of alternatives such as using them for patrolling in protected forests or house them in rescue centres such as the one built by Wildlife SOS near Agra, where they could live better and get treatment,” said Fayaz Khudsar, scientist-in-charge, Yamuna Biodiversity Park.