More captive elephants die in Kerala

THRISSUR: The elephants are having a tough time during the festival season which is indicated by the fact that 16 animals have died in the state during this season that  began in November last  and ended with Kannambra Vela in Palakkad on  May. The latest to die were  Vineetha Krishnan of Guruvayur Devaswom on Saturday and Adi Narayanan at Cherpulassery in Palakkad on Sunday.

According to the data collected by Mr V.K. Venkitachalam,  general secretary of the pro-animal group,  'Heritage Animal Task Force' here, only 10 elephants had died last time but seven elephants died in Thisssur this  season, including Thiruvamabadi Sivasunder, who was the star attraction of Thrissur Pooram.  "Two captive elephants have died in Palakkad, two cow elephants illegally used for trekking at resorts in Munnar, two in Ernakulam and one each in Kottayam, Kollam  and Thiruvananthapurm  in the past seven months," he said citing the report prepared by the task force.

His organisation has sent the details of the report to the top forest and wildlife officials in Delhi and in the state. Elephant expert Dr P.B. Giridas who treated some of the deceased elephants said that the post-mortem on the Guruvayur elephant showed that it died due to urinary stone. Adi Narayanan was suffering from acute diarrhoea, he said.

"With 15 to 20 captive elephants dying in a year, there is shortage of elephants in Kerala for temple and other festivals. There is a ban on their interstate transportation as well. If this scenario continues, the number of captive elephants will come down drastically in the state. The shortage has led to more workload on the healthy elephants which are paraded during festival seasons," he said and urged the government to take a call on the issue. However, Mr Venkitachalam said that the workload of elephants must be brought down by strictly implementing the Captive Elephants Management and Maintenance Rules 2003.