Intruder must have provoked elephant: Vet

Laxmi and Anarkali, the two female elephants at the Byculla zoo, have no past record of unruly behaviour, say zoo officials. However, Sunday's incident, where Laxmi, the 55-year-old female pachyderm killed a man who entered the enclosure, goes to prove that wild animals can be unpredictable, if provoked, say experts.

A mahout at the zoo said, “It is not the elephant’s fault. In the five years that I have worked here, Laxmi has always been well-behaved. The fact that the man entered the elephant enclosure was provocation enough for Laxmi to attack him.”

Zoo veterinarian and superintendent Dr Sanjay Tripathi, said, “Both female elephants are normal healthy creatures. They have never attacked anyone.”

According to Dr Tripathi, it was the man who was at fault. “No one knows what he did inside the enclosure. But, it is certain that he provoked her in some way,” Tripathi said.

RA Rajeev, additional municipal commissioner, said, “The BMC will wait for the police investigation report on the incident before deciding on the course of action.”

According to the veterinarian, while female elephants are known to be docile, males are usually troublemakers. Rajkumar, the zoo’s only male elephant, had to be sent to the Thiruvananthapuram zoo in 2007, because he proved too difficult to handle. A desperate Rajkumar, in ‘musth’ (a periodic condition in bull elephants, characterised by highly aggressive behaviour, accompanied by a large rise in reproductive hormones), went berserk in June 2006 and ran out of his enclosure. It took the mahouts five hours to control him.

“Female elephants do not have such mating behaviour or problems,” Tripathi said.

“The Byculla zoo has obviously disregarded the directive from the Central Zoo Authority (CZA) which prohibits zoos from exhibiting elephants. All large mammals in the zoo need to be relocated to a larger and better facility,” said Anuradha Sawhney, co-opted member, Animal Welfare Board of India.