(IN): Nameri home for elephants - Assam zoo sends two trained jumbos to the national park A STAFF REPORTER

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http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100403/jsp/northeast/story_12296475.jsp

 

 

Nameri home for elephants

- Assam zoo sends two trained jumbos to the national parkA STAFF REPORTER

 

Guwahati, April 2: Pakhiraj and Lakhan will have a new address from tomorrow

— Nameri National Park.

 

These two elephants — trained at the Assam state zoo — was sent today to

Nameri in Sonitpur district bordering Arunachal Pradesh.

 

With this, the state zoo has added another feather to its cap.

 

The state zoo is the only centre in Assam which is preserving the unique

elephant-training culture of the state.

 

“Our trainers are in demand all over the world. A few years back our

trainers were invited to Japan to teach the training techniques in that

country,” the divisional forest official of the zoo, Narayan Mahanta, said.

 

Mahanta said although elephants are also trained in national parks and

sanctuaries in Assam, the zoo is the only such centre which is trying to

keep the unique culture of Assam intact.

 

Training of elephants in Assam dates back to over a hundred years and it has

become a kind of a tradition for the state.

 

Similar methods are also used in Kerala.

 

Pakhiraj and Lakhan were rescued from two different locations in 2001. Both

had separated from their herds.

 

While Pakhiraj was captured from the Panjabari area on the outskirts of the

city while it was about two months old, Lakhan, one-and-a-half years old at

the time, was rescued from Karbi Anglong district.

 

Mahanta said the zoo now has 10 elephants, all of them trained in the zoo

itself.

 

“A few more elephants are likely to be sent to national parks and

sanctuaries, since the zoo is over-populated with elephants,” he said.

 

The zoo has at least five elephant trainers at present and it takes about

three months to train each pachyderm.

 

Trained elephants from the state zoo were sent to various national parks and

sanctuaries in the state on earlier occasions.

 

The two elephants will be used in various jobs — patrolling and ferrying

ration to forest guards and camps — at the sanctuary.

 

Although the traditional elephant training techniques in Assam is unique to

this region, wildlife activists feel that these are very painful for the

elephants.

 

Recently, the Wildlife Trust of India held workshop at the zoo in a bid to

introduce an alternative to traditional techniques.

 

These techniques, WTI officials claim, are less painful for the animals and

they learn much faster.

 

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