(IN): Jumbo power tapped

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Yet another blow to the Wild Elephants in India.

Do they have any patch of green left for survival ?

Encroachment in every Park, Sanctuary, Corridor ! Hamlets turning to

Villages to Towns.

Cement factories, stone quarries right on elephant corridors.

Killer railway tracks making way cutting across the wild.

Massive deforestation, crops making way for lush green tropical forests.

Timber mafia rules unchecked.

 

To add to this here comes the 'Queen of Elephants', Parbati Barua with her

latest exercise.

 

Watch out on AAPN as in the days to come readers will certainly get to see

more news of 'Man-Made elephant conflicts' which shall result out of such

brilliant ambitious projects to chase away the wild elephants.

 

Wonder who shall be assigned the task of chasing away the Humans from the

wild .

 

Any takers ??

 

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Link: http://www.telegraphindia.com/1071018/asp/northeast/story_8446674.asp

 

Jumbo power tapped

A STAFF REPORTER

 

*Guwahati, Oct. 17:* Assam has got yet another special commando force. This

is one with a difference, though.

 

Launched by the forest department, the 150 specially trained mahouts and a

few *kunkis* (leader elephants) will combat the growing depredation of wild

tuskers by driving them away from human habitats without or little

collateral damage.

 

Elephant catcher Parbati Baruah has trained these " commandos " .

 

Divisional forest officer of Kaziranga National Park Bonkim Sharma said,

" Earlier, domesticated elephants and their mahouts were used to catch wild

tuskers. Now we have developed a special training module to build a new

force which will drive away the wild herds causing least damage. "

 

A two-week training for the last batch of 25 mahouts concluded on Monday.

Training for few *kunkis* of the commando force will begin soon.

 

The move to set up the special commando force was conceived following the

failure of several attempts by domestic elephants in these new ventures.

 

Domestic elephants were used to chase wild herds recently, but most of these

" operations " were believed to have failed because of lack of proper training

of the elephants and their mahouts.

 

A majority of these elephants were engaged in the timber industry for

pulling logs. According to official estimates, over a thousand domestic

elephants were left to fend for themselves after the Supreme Court banned

the felling of timber in the region in 1996.

 

Several elephants are today found begging on the streets since the owners

have deserted them owing to the huge cost in feeding them.

 

A forest official, however, questioned the success of the commando force.

" Most of the domestic elephants are sold to Bihar or South India. It would

be a tough task to find a herd of healthy elephants, " he said.

 

Sharma said the service of these elephants would also be used in the

national parks in the state during the tourist season. " Since more elephants

would be required for safaris in the national parks, the service of these

elephants would be used, " he said.

 

 

 

 

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