In the hamlets, with the elephants
RADHA H.S.
|
Visit the camp at Dubbare near Mysore for an interesting interactive programme — between elephants and humans.
|
India's tropical jungles are home to the endangered Asian elephants.
PHOTO: RADHA H.S.
AT THE CAMP: Getting to know the jumbos.
We were headed for the Dubbare Elephant Camp by the Cauvery, situated two hours from Mysore city. We went across the river - sparkling and beautiful, the trees on the banks, in bloom — adding colour to the already beautiful scene. And on the far side were the elephants in the water.
The boat docked with a gentle thud. We used the roots of wild mango trees as steps and got to where the elephants stood in the water. Another elephant entered the water and sat down.
The mahout began to scrub the elephant. He called out to us to `give Indra a good scrub'. He climbed onto the elephant's folded leg and scrubbed the top of his head and even behind the ears!
So why are people driving so many miles to help scrub elephants?
India's tropical jungles are home to the endangered Asian elephants. Big and stately, man has tamed them for centuries. Over the years they have been used in wars, temple rituals, as transport, for moving and lugging huge weights like boulders and most importantly in logging. In the last few years to logging has been banned in many parts of India. Many elephants and their mahouts are now jobless.
Interact with the giants
Most of these elephants belong to the Forest Department and are maintained by them. Cereals like ragi and gram are cooked and rolled into big balls by the mahouts for them.
Unfortunately, both tame elephants and those born in captivity cannot cope with the jungle on their own. They have either never learnt or forgotten the ways of the jungle. Wild tuskers have been known to kill them in fights in the wild.
Clearing the jungles for agriculture has shrunk their traditional homes. Elephants require grazing for up to 18 hours a day in the jungle.
Too many elephants concentrated in a small stretch of jungle, leads to hungry elephants and they tend to go on the rampage into neighbouring fields.
This affects both the farmers and the elephants adversely. Farmers have died under the feet of rampaging elephants apart from the loss of crop. Farmers have put up high-voltage fences (this is against the law) and this has killed many elephants. Electric fences are only supposed to deter the elephants but many a time the voltage is higher than permitted.
Keeping all this in mind, the Forest Department came up with the idea for a paid interactive programme — between elephants and people.
The mahouts and the elephants live in hamlets. People who like to visit can do so and get to spend a short while in the peripheral jungles, observe and feed the elephants and scrub their backs.
* * *
Interesting tidbits
The talk by the conservationist and the mahout is interesting. You learn interesting tidbits like the occasional male elephant without tusks is called the makhanah. Both male and female African elephants have tusks. Indian elephants have a single finger. No, they do not have hands, but the tip of the trunk extends to a finger whereas the African ones have two. For all the chewing they do, they use up almost six sets of molars over their average life-span of 70 to 80 years. As the molars fall, new ones grow. The tusks are really their incisors growing all the way out.
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Young World
