Thiruvananthapuram: Captive elephants in Kerala are dying as if they have been caught in an epidemic.
Already 21 have died this year. The death toll for the whole of 2017 was 20.
What is even more alarming is the age: these tuskers are dying young.
The oldest tusker to die was Mangalamkunnu Guruvayurappan of Palakkad, at 38. Guruvayurappan collapsed a day after it returned from a long and arduous festival season, breathing its last on the fourth day. The youngest was Neyyatinkara Kannan, and it had been chained to a tree for nearly three years near a temple on the outskirts of Thiruvananthapuram city. When it died two months ago, it looked so starved that the bones under its parched, almost transparent skin could be counted. Kannan was only 22.
Here is another disturbing fact: post-mortem conducted on all the dead elephants revealed that they had impaction, a severe form of constipation in which undigested food accumulates into a thick mass and blocks the intestinal passage. Sivsundar's was perhaps the most mourned death in the state. Thousands paid homage to the tusker hailed as 'Azhakinte Thampuram' (The Lord of Good Looks).
His majesty Sivsundar, who was the most preferred tusker to carry the idol of the Lord, remained in a state of coma for over two months. And on the 66th day, on March 11, the last tiniest bit of life remaining in him passed out. Thrissur's legendary jumbo was only 34. Post-mortem revealed massive constipated blocks, some as large as ration shop flour sacks, within the elephant's body.
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Manilal, a veterinarian with the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) said to understand what ailed captive elephants in the state, one only had to see how elephants lived in the wild. “In the wild, they walk for 18 to 20 hours a day, eat fibre-rich food, and drink as much water as they choose. As for the domesticated ones, they are generally chained to a place and stand for hours on end on concrete surfaces. They are served a protein- and sugar-rich diet that humans consume, and are denied free access to drinking water,” Dr Manilal said.
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He said there is no way out. “The feed, the exercise, and the quantity of water these elephants require are so humongous that it is beyond the capacity of a private individual, or even a large organisation like the Devaswom. It is even unrealistic to ask them to grant such facilities to the elephants in their custody,” Dr Manilal said. In a way, this can explain why things have not changed even after the Forest Department had tightened the Captive Elephant Management Rules since May this year.
Treatment, too, seems out of question.
"Had it been cattle, we could have done enema or gastric intubation. But not on an elephant,” said Gopikrishnan, a retired veterinarian. “Many veterinary surgeons have said that an elephant cannot be subjected to even surgery. The process is so complicated that the chances of secondary infections are very high," Dr Gopikrishnan said.
The founder of Heritage Animal Task Force, K Venkitachalam, said captive elephants should at least be allowed to walk freely for long hours in a sprawling fenced-in area. "You make them work so hard for your gains that the least that can be done is create such spaces for them. Walking is one way they can beat indigestion," Venkitachalam said. It is Venkitachalam's figures on captive elephants that even the Forest Department relies on. According to him, only 388 captive elephants now remain in the state.
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