Only 300 registered jumbos in Kerala

ALAPPUZHA: Amidst the long-standing stand-off over the sanctity of registration norms on captive elephants in the state—even the Supreme Court recently asked the state government to clear the anomalies in this regard—the State government has made it clear in a RTI reply that there are only 300 registered captive elephants as per the Declaration of Wildlife Stock Rules 2003 out of total 684 pachyderms in the state.  

The RTI by VK Venkitachalam, Secretary, Thrissur based Heritage Animal Rescue Force, clarifies that of the total 684 elephants, 26 belonged to the forest department, 157 were owned by the Devaswoms and Temples, 5 are in the Circus and 573 are with private parties.  

Though a controversy had erupted on the manner in which elephants were issued registration certificates by the forest department, the RTI reply by the additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forest, claimed that the unregistered 384 jumbos would be issued certification clearance.

This was decided at a meeting presided over by Vinod Ranjan, Additional Director General of Forest, Wildlife,on January 17. The decision has drawn criticism from human rights activists.  

Mr Venkitachalam says that all registrations of captive elephants should be overseen by the Animal Welfare Board of India.

“There were anomalies in the manner in which the then government issued registration in 2006. But by that year the major chunk of elephant owners got their animals registered.” He said that however, the registration process was stopped when the then Union Minister for Environment and Forest Mrs. Jayanti Natarajan issued a letter to the state government on May 16, 2012 citing that “further extension of time limit for declaration of wildlife articles would only encourage illegal and clandestine transactions in wildlife products, which could potentially dent our conservation efforts”.

“In this context, the new decision of the meeting chaired by a low stature bureaucrat is really shocking. We will challenge it in the AWBI if there is any attempt by the state government to give extension to register new elephants. The petition has already been sent to AWBI”, he added.  

Interestingly, the revelation on the number of elephants comes at a time when the apex court on April 24 sought responses from the Centre and nine states including Kerala on a petition filed by Bangalore-based Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre. The social justice bench led by Justice Dipak Misra ordered the state government to furnish details on the number of captive elephants.

However, it is learnt that the forest department has been moving to issue registrations.  Even though Deccan Chronicle made an attempt to get in touch with the Chief Wildlife Warden, he did not respond to the query.