The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : City zoo gets a male elephant

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Apr 13, 2007
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Kerala

Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

City zoo gets a male elephant

Staff Reporter

MINISTERIAL WELCOME: Education Minister M.A. Baby offers an apple to Rajkumar, 18-year-old elephant, that was bought to the Thiruvananthapuram zoo on Thursday. - Photo: C. Ratheesh kumar

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A journey of close to 2,000 kilometres, six days inside an specially constructed iron enclosure and many a tension-filled moment... Finally Rajkumar arrived at the city zoo shortly before 4 a.m. on Thursday.

Though zoo vet C. S. Jayakumar and the three animal keepers who went with him to the V.J.B. Zoo at Bycula, Mumbai, to bring over the 18-year-old elephant were happy that the journey had been incident-free, a critical task awaited them; the unloading of the four-ton elephant whose character by no stretch of imagination can be described as `gentle.' After a 40-minute `operation,' the elephant was safely inside its pseudo-habitat enclosure seemingly none the worse for the journey.

"There were several moments during the journey when the elephant got into a temper. Though we had tranquilliser darts ready, we did not use them. We got the elephant under control by placing ropes around its neck and by preventing it from moving around. From Mumbai to Pune, then on to Bangalore, Hubli, Madurai and Thirunelveli and finally Thiruvananthapuram - we had to chose a route that did not have sharp curves or steep inclines," Mr. Jayakumar said.

Since Rajkumar will need some time to get used to the idea that he is in India's deep South and that here things are told in a language called Malayalam, two mahouts from Mumbai have also come down and will stay on for a few weeks during the `transition' period. Already the elephant is responding to some basic commands given by zoo's elephant keeper C. Radhakrishnan Nair who was in the team that went to Mumbai.

Rajkumar's life at the Mumbai zoo, according to the city zoo superintendent S. Abu, was not happy. After he made a move to attack his mahout about a year ago, he was being kept in very harsh conditions. "The animal rights group PETA went to court and the Mumbai high court ordered that the elephant be shifted out. The CZA looked around the country and found that our zoo had the right settings to host another elephant. That is how Rajkumar came our way," Mr. Abu said.

The zoo's resident female elephant Maheshwari was brought here way back in 1946. She was then about 12 years old.

Cultural Affairs Minister M.A. Baby visited the zoo in the afternoon and offered plantain and apples to the new arrival. The zoo has plans to bring over a female giraffe from the Kolkata zoo, he said.

PETA's plea

Meanwhile, PETA has issued a poster that shows actor Rahul Khanna in chains with bruises painted on to his body. He poses next to the tagline `Beaten, Shackled, Abused-Elephants Don't Belong in Zoos.'

"Elephants are social creatures and in the wild, the females live in closely-knit family groups... Captive conditions fail to provide an interesting, stimulating and rewarding environment for elephants... ," the PETA press note reads.

"A more respectful way to observe these animals is through the fascinating wildlife programmes available to everyone on TV," the press quotes Rahul Khanna as saying.

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