Madhya Pradesh's five national parks will soon have 11 more trained elephants to attract tourists and organise jungle safaris. A team of experts from Bandhavgarh national park have left for Karnatakato assess quality of elephants the state government has offered to provide.
“Karnataka has surplus elephants and we are in dire need of trained ones. So, we accepted the offer,” chief wildlife warden Dr HS Pabla told DNA. The trained pachyderms will be used to manage day-to-day affairs of the tiger reserves and boost patrolling in the area to prevent poaching.
Pabla said the elephants, which are to be brought, would give a major impetus to tourism in the reserved parks. The government also plans to use them to increase number of elephant safaris for tourists. Karnataka government has not kept any pre-condition of animal exchange for the elephants.
The visiting MP team will assess health status of the trained elephants.Age group of trained elephants would also be a major point in selecting them.
The Madhya Pradesh government is looking for elephants in the age-group of 15 to 25 years as they are known to serve well till 60 years of age, sources said. Karnataka’s forests are home to 20% of the elephant population in the country — 5,800 Asiatic elephants occupy 8,000 sq km in the state. There are nearly 8 lakh hectares of elephant reserves in the districts of Chamarajanagar, Mysore, Hassan, Kodagu and Ramanagaram.
The south Indian state has over 150 elephants trained in various camps, including the Dubare elephant training camp that trains the pachyderms for the famous Mysore Dussehra.
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