Elephants to be banished from all zoos. Story and comment posted in latest Zoo News Digest. One starts to wonder if the zoo community, the practical conservationists are being infiltrated.
The article says that they will be sent to national parks, sanctuaries and tiger reserves. On the BBC website it also says that: "African elephants - held in Delhi and Mysore zoos - will be transferred to national parks as well as the native Indian elephants, officials say." What do they mean by this? are they really going to let African elephants roam free in India?
i just realised - you're THAT peter dickinson! in that case - a very large and sincere thankyou for all the work that you have put into making those news stories appear in my inbox all these years.
I visited a number of zoos in South India and have been dragging through my memory as to whether I saw an elephant that was being badly treated in a zoo and cannot remember a one. Animals were in good condition and were in experienced hands and, of course, 'monitored' by visitors. Some paddocks were very large and with animals having free movement. I am sure if we looked long and hard there will be exceptions though. Moving animals out of Indian zoos will not change anything except no-one will see how they are being treated. It is, I believe, a case of moving a difficulty along to someone elses yard. In this case the 'problem' is that group of uninformed individuals who believe elephants in zoos is cruel and so out of zoos is freedom. It isn't and it won't be.
I am concerned that African elephants will be more vulnerable to poachers if placed in national parks. They will also lose the medical care they get in zoos.
Cheers - couldn't get the article to load properly for some reason. I guess it's a good thing that they're being rehomed to managed parks at least, although I agree that having free roaming African elephants in India is a bit strange.
Another link to a similar article: All India's Zoo and Circus Elephants Migrate to Wild Life Parks - ABC News There will be 140 elephants, in 26 zoos and 16 circuses, that will be set free into wildlife sanctuaries.
Will they be really set free? I copy a part of the article: What is better - to live as a zoo / circus elephant, or to work as a riding elephant for rangers / visitors? I don´t see such a big difference.
As a ranger's elephant, I'd expect they'd walk around a bigger area most days than they would in a zoo. They might even be allowed a degree of free ranging when they're not working.
I have to say i am concerned as to the fate of the African elephants at Mysore and Delhi, what on earth will they do with them??? Fly them to Australia i say
I found the bbc article earlier today and was lookin around for a thread on it... BBC NEWS | South Asia | Indian elephants to go from zoos It is interesting to note according to the article temple elephants will be excluded from the ban.
Elephants to leave Indian Zoos I have had an email from India this morning which goes some way towards the thinking behind the move. I have posted it on my Blog so you can read it there. There has been a small flurry of correspondence since then but I have been too busy to read it all.
Way to go CritterBlog!! A country so "sophisticated" that millions of humans live with no electricity or running water, humans starve to death every day rather than eat the cattle that could feed them, temple elephants will not be relocated so as not to offend the Gods -BUT - 140 elephants will be dispossessed from their homes and relocated to areas where no-one wants them. This world of ours is seriously screwed.
I had the pleasure of speaking with an elephant biologist from India recently. He had created a checklist to evaluate elephant care. He ranked timber camp elephants as having the best care, then zoos, circuses, and temples in that order, if I remember correctly. It is certainly interesting that the elephants that are chained the most and have the least contact with other elephants--those that are kept at temples for blessings and festivals--are exempt from this new regulation. Perhaps the government is unwilling to take on the religious establishment. I share the concern about the elephants being sent to "sanctuaries". What, exactly, does this mean in terms of their care and how will their wellbeing be monitored?
From what I have learned from "starelephants" elephants kept for processions usually have three mahouts. In general they have fantastic care and human support. There are no females in sight though which makes them very agitated espicially when they are chained for musth when another bull elephant could be also chained nearby for the same reason. The mahouts often care for their elephants over night, but the lacking of social interaction is probably very bad for them even though being bulls they are born for a solitary life. Processions or Poorams often go for hours even days at a time and Pooram season is when it is the hottest. At the moment the elephant known as the "king" of poorams is very well behaved when around humans but he has attacked many other elephants, stabbing one severly. His former main mahout unfortunately happened to be very cruel. As punishment of stabbing another elephant ( which happened to be the king at the time) he blinded one of his eyes. - overall though care given to elephants participating in poorams is excellent, its just that participating in the poorams themselves is often exhausting.
