THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Over work and festival-related stress is taking its toll on elephants like never before. Captive elephant deaths in the state have touched 20 this year, the highest ever. The 20th death took place on November 18, when Venattumattom Rajasekharan, a 58-year-old tusker in the custody of an elephant contractor, was found dead at a timber yard near Karimanthode in Pathanamthitta. The elephant, Forest Department source said, had been made to lift timber consecutively for five days without enough food and rest.
Another elephant kept in the same yard, Venattumuttom Ganeshan, was found dead a month ago on October 5, World Elephant Day. Ganeshan had suffered from stress-induced tuberculosis. According to Heritage Animal Task Force secretary V.K. Venkitachalam, who keeps record of elephant torture and deaths, the number of deaths this year is a record. “Never before has this happened. It just shows that this year’s festival season was unbelievably hard on captive elephants,” Mr Venkitachalam said. Most of the dead captives, it has now been revealed, were transported long distances in lorries and made to walk on boiling tarmac for hours. Venkitachalam said that 17 of the 20 elephants that died this year had been subjected to brutal torture.
“All of these, without exception, take place as part of the festival circuit. In the morning the sun beats down on them and in the nights the heat from flaming torches that are placed near their eyes,” he said. Still, in spite of a rule prohibiting temples from starting elephant displays that are not part of the temple tradition, temples compete with each other to find innovative ways to display elephants. For instance, the Vaikom Mahadeva Temple lined up 18 captive elephants on November 18 for an ‘anayoottu’ event that was never part of the temple’s tradition. A clear indication that things had gone out of control was a set of guidelines issued by the Travancore Devaswom Board on November 11. “These guidelines were breached with impunity by the Vaikom Temple,” Mr Venkitachalam said.
