(IN): Elephant menace: Is castration the answer?

April 5, 2010

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BANGALORE: Bogged down by the increasing human-elephant conflicts in the

state and a shortage of sedative drugs to capture rogue elephants, the

Karnataka forest department seems to be mulling over castrating the state’s

jumbos to bring down their population.

Sources said that castrating elephants was one of the solutions discussed in

the April 2 meeting of the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) which

comprised high-level officials from Karnataka as well as other south Indian

states. The meeting was also attended by members of the elephant task force and

leading NGOs.

There is a growing problem of wild elephants in Mysore, Hassan, Kodagu and

Chamrajnagar, a senior official present at the meeting said on condition of

anonymity.

“The real problem has been the non-availability of drugs like Immobilon and

Rivivon which are used for capturing rogue elephants.

Currently both of them are not available in the country.

Hence there were some apparent suggestions made to castrate the wild

elephants,” he said.

Chief Wildlife Warden B K Singh said that references were made to castrating

elephants only as a possible solution. “But these were just passing

references, not a decision,” he said. “ What transpired on April 2 was a

public consultation and based on the feedback from different stake-holders, the

task force will submit a report by May-end to the MoEF,” Singh said.

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