Hyderabad Zoo Stumbles on Jumbo Problem

Hyderabad: The Nehru Zoological Park (NZP) in the city has a mammoth problem. Its elephants are running rogue and are becoming increasingly hard to control. In the latest such incident, which has led to a fresh round of concern, one of the elephant keepers was injured, having his thigh bone fractured in two places by a female elephant three days ago.

Waseem, the animal keeper who was injured after Sita, a female elephant, apparently brushed him aside while he was tending to the animal, is now recuperating in a private hospital in the city after surgery to his right leg to repair his thigh bone. “The doctors said it will take about three months for the injury to heal and for me to walk normally again,” he said. Waseem explained that the incident happened without warning when the elephant pushed him away with one of its legs. Sita, whose actions resulted in Waseem suffering serious injuries, is a rescue elephant from Jamuna Circus in 2016 and is one of the four Asian elephants at NZP.

Following the incident, Sita has been chained and restricted to its shelter, where it joined Vijay, a male elephant that, last October, had killed its keeper, Mohd Shabaz. It is learned that since October, Vijay had been in restraints and, as a consequence of the steel chain tightening around its leg, developed a serious cut wound which is now being treated. The male elephant, which was caught near Tirumala Hills in 1994 and was brought to the city zoo from Kuppam where it had been lodged to treat an infected tusk, has remained in the city zoo since.

Meanwhile, officials have stated that Vijay, the tusker, is all set to be shipped off to an elephant camp in Bannerghatta Biological Park for some desperately needed training from the experienced elephant handlers there. A proposal to shift the elephant there has been approved by the Karnataka forest department, which also made it clear that all the costs of the animal’s upkeep must be borne by the Telangana forest department.

“The zoo faces serious manpower problems when it comes to elephants and there is a very quick turnover of mahouts who are sourced from Karnataka to come and train the elephants. More so, the animal keepers who look after the elephants are rotated, and before an elephant can get accustomed to its keeper, a new one is posted, and this makes the elephants uncomfortable. This issue is as much a management problem as it is about the behaviour of the elephants,” a source well-versed in the goings-on at the zoo said.

Inset: Call for more trained mahouts

Vijay, the male elephant aged around 43 years and under restraints since last October, is deemed as a threat to the safety and well-being of animal keepers and visitors to the zoo. According to an official document, animal keepers at the NZP who take care of elephants at Hyderabad’s zoo are not trained and lack expertise in dealing with elephants showing aggressive behaviour. The zoo also lacks trained and experienced mahavats or mahouts. Vijay, which had killed its keeper Mohd Shabaz, has a history of at least 22 incidents of running berserk, and it was only with great difficulty that it could be restrained.