First elephant hospital cheers animal activists and tourists
Facility is close to a conservation that is already home to 22 elephants
At India’s first hospital for elephants, that opened last week in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, 49-year old Asha placed her left foreleg on a stool for a doctor to attend to an injury, while visitors filmed it on their phones.
With facilities such as wireless digital X-Ray, thermal imaging, ultrasonography, tranquilisation devices and quarantine facilities, the hospital not only treats elephants but is also attracting local and foreign tourists.
Elephants are an important part of India’s wildlife and culture and are prominently displayed in festivals and processions in the country’s south. They are also used as tourist attractions at several forts and palaces in the northern and western regions.
‘Welfare of elephants’
The hospital, inaugurated on Friday in the holy town of Mathura, is spread over 1,200 square metres and designed to treat injured, sick or geriatric elephants.
“By building this hospital, we are highlighting the fact that elephants need welfare measures as much as any other animal,” Geeta Seshamani, co-founder of Wildlife SOS, the non-profit behind the hospital, told journalists.
The hospital, on the banks of the Yamuna River, is close to an elephant conservation and care centre run by Wildlife SOS that is home to 22 elephants.
Elephants often fall victim to electrocution, poaching, train accidents and poisoning, animal rights activists say.
India’s elephant population fell to 27,312 in 2017 from 29,391-30,711 in 2012, government data shows. Hundreds of elephants across India, which accounts for more than half of Asia’s elephant population, are held in captivity.