The Great Indian Elephant Cull

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culling ):

"Culling is the process of removing animals from a group based on specific criteria. This is done in order to either reinforce certain desirable characteristics or to remove certain undesirable characteristics from the group. For livestock and wildlife, the process of culling usually implies the killing of animals with undesirable characteristics."

If the above definition of 'Culling' is to be followed then I am afraid 'ELEPHANT CULLING' is already in full swing slowly but steadily all over India.

Yes, one may argue that and brush it aside as 'stray incidents' of 'human elephant conflict' or 'poaching' since the official announcement of 'Elephant Culling' has not been declared by the Indian Government.

But hang on, is the Indian Government taking any actions on the growing incidents of 'brutal massacres' of the Jumbos?

On papers, Yes perhaps.

In reality a simple 'NO".

They just do not have the 'WILLPOWER' to save/ protect this mammal from being eliminated in this Country.

Political pressure from various corners seems to be only working in favour of the 'Humans' here.

More and more people are pumped inside protected wildlife habitats to convert jungles into paddy fields.

A Local MLA goes full blast spraying bullets from AK-47 on a wild herd in Assam and goes on record in the media for what he does.

The same MLA is later arrested for flouting more wildlife laws only to be out fished out by his lawyers scratch free.

Same goes with the BIGGEST terrorist in Wildlife Crime, Sansar Chand who has recently been granted BAIL by the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India.

Wonder what he is planning next?

Cement factories and Stone quarries are welcomed in many parts of the Country inside protected areas and even elephant corridors.

Trains are crushing herds into pieces of meat. Yes meat because now its not the animal carcass that the forest department recovers from the site of any so called 'conflict death', instead there have been many reported incidents of people feasting on the kill of the elephants after bringing it down.

In fact in a recent incident where an elephant accidental consumed 'urea' and fell unconscious, a section of the public went on to cut its ear and chop off its tail before the elephant regained conciousness.

High tension live electric cables are laid in a very organised manner and this trend is ON for quite many years.

And in the Northeast of India you have another unique issue.

The issue of insurgency, militancy and terrorism which is driving the Government nuts.

They are entering into dialogues after dialogues with these groups some of whom are under a 'ceasefire' but with the condition of allowing them the liberty to remain in the jungles till the talks are over.

Now, what they do inside the jungles is anybody's guess.

So the 1st BIG question that one may ask is that:

Is there space for elephants in India?

And the answer is NO.

Then in that case what should the Government do in order to protect the citizens from the elephants, and cut down their population?

If the Government allowed the 'Culling' of elephants it will face an ARMY of wildlife respecting people who will go all the way to oppose the same, also considering the Wildlife Protection Act, it may not be easy to get that done.

The next best and simple option is to just sit and watch.

Now the 2nd BIG question that I would ask is that:

Do we wait for the official word on 'Elephant Culling' from the Government's mouth and we take action, or is it time to pick up the many 'stray incidents' of elephant massacres and murders across the nation and DEMAND ACTION NOW?

We certainly are not waiting for the last Tiger in the Wild to vanish before the focus shifts into the Jumbos, or are we?

Azam Siddiqui

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CULL UPDATES (check weblinks below):


Wild jumbo perishes at Bhutiachang tea estate

http://www.assamtribune.com/scripts/detailsnew.asp?id=may2910/state06

Elephant electrocuted in Udalguri district, again

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090930/jsp/northeast/story_11553827.jsp

threatened moms- nowhere to run !

It wasn't the most violent Human Elephant conflict I had ever seen or heard of.

Instead it was more of a crisis situation that had developed between the villagers of Chandrapur area in the outskirts of Guwahati. A herd of 30 odd elephants had descended from the nearby Amchang forests where their habitat had been robbed of by human settlers and the wildlife mafia.

After some damage to the standing paddy crop and pulling down a few jackfruit, the people cornered the herd to a bush within the croplands. Although no fire arms, crackers or arrows were aimed at the jumbos, yet with the hooting and yelling the herd was moving back and forwards seemed disturbed and did make a couple of attempts to charge at the men. On a closer observation I saw a baby ellie holding on to its mom, surrounded by the other members of the herd.

Fearing that things could get worse if the threatened dominant mother or the matriarch decide to take on. I appeal them to calm down. As the voices dimmed and the disturbed ellies seemed relaxed and had started feeding, I dared slowly walk towards them hiding behind the bush to get a better shot with my cam.

The camera rolls for a couple of minutes as I film each member of the herd-

the baby, the mother, few young ones, the tusker . . . . .

then suddenly the mother charges on me like a flash of lightning from about 50 meters away. Lucky I saw her from the corner my left eye, right being engaged in filming the tusker. The cam rolling and my heart racing out, I turn around and run for my life. I hear a few screams of the people trying to scare the elephant who was obviously running much faster than I could.

“run !!! Its still charging”, yells a villager from somewhere. It is not easy sprinting in a bush and no sooner did I realise this I was on the ground. Turning over my shoulder I see the giant mammal shake her head down at me for a second and the quietly return to her baby.

After a brief pause numbed by the shock I do manage to rise up, pick my cam and slide out of the conflict area with a dozen of Whys on my mind.

The question most on priority being, just why did the elephant have to stop when it almost got me? She certainly did not wait to answer my question but instead taught me a very BIG lesson in life.

To never underestimate the power of a ‘threatened mother’.

My training in ‘Orphaned Elephant Management’ of playing surrogate mother to the orphaned ellies at the ‘David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust’ in Kenya would certainly not have been complete without this practical field experience of confronting this real threatened mother.

With habitats shrinking and crisis snowballing into conflicts, one wonders just how far these mothers would be allowed to run for their dependent young ones before the two legged monsters corner them again.

In the pic above: Trunks rise to explore the presence of predators.

the unfortunate key

It has been almost a year now and still that unfortunate moment haunts me every time the 'key' gets turned.

Like any normal day I turned the ignition of my car in the garage. After a couple of attempts the engine roared but as if something was blocking it from cycling.

I immediately switched off the ignition pausing for a moment what could that be?

Then I could hear a faint sound of something knocking inside . . . . I knew this was tragedy !

Opened the bonnet and there was blood splattered all over with traces of small hair, for a minute I could not see where & what animal that was.

Then as I explored deep beloe where the belts are placed, I could see a severely wounded full grown rat which was stuck in between the chassis and the crash bumper of the car.

This was the most horrifying sight I ever witnessed in my life.

There was blood dripping from its face, it was alive, I could see its eyes were staring at me as if begging for mercy, but there was just no way I could get the poor thing out.

Finally after 5mins of struggle I could manage to get him out.

I reached out for a shoe box from my house and drove him to the nearest clinic 'Pet & Vet where his condition was examined and it was decided to put him to sleep.

This horrific accident could have been averted had I been a little more responsible.

Many times, rats in the past have chewed up my car wires etc in my garage and so there was every possibility of them hiding inside.

If only I was a little careful with looking around before turning the 'key' it could have saved a life.

A lesson learnt but at such a heavy price.

Pictures above: The rat being put to sleep at 'Pet & Vet' clinic, Guwahati