A trip to the zoo often includes a ride on an elephant as an extra treat. No longer, says the Central Zoo Authority. Elephants are large creatures and must not be confined in the tiny spaces allocated to them in zoos.
All elephants in captivity, about 140 of them, are to be immediately sent to national parks, sanctuaries and tiger reserves. This does not mean that tame elephants — those which take children for a ride, for instance — will be sent back into the wild. Rather, they will be used for other purposes in the national forests. This includes patrolling, departmental work and eco-tourism. Or more simply, an elephant ride is verboten at Jijamata Udyan but de rigueur at Rajaji Natural Park or at Kaziranga.
In essence, the directive makes sense, especially when you consider elephants in isolation. They migrate long distances, follow their own distinct herding patterns and are very intelligent when it comes to dealing with enemies. For them to be kept in small enclosures for human pleasure is cruel. So for elephants, the return to a large forest, with some government work on the side, may not be a bad deal.
However, it is also true that this argument can be applied to all creatures in zoos. In the wild, they all had access to vast areas used in a way that suited them. The big cats, monkeys, deer, alligators, giraffes… every living thing, as it happens, once enjoyed a certain freedom which was curtailed by humankind for its own entertainment and edification. The CZA therefore has re-opened the argument about the need for zoos at all.
All zoo animals could be transferred to various reserve forests, where we can pay to see them in natural habitat and feel, fleetingly, that we ourselves are still in touch with our animal side.
In the short run, apart from elephants in zoos, the wildlife authorities might want to turn their attention to elephants used by itinerant mendicants, which are still seen lumbering on city streets begging for their owners. They also might be happier in national forests. What about elephants in circuses? The world over, animals are being used less and less in circus acts and animals in zoos are at least fed and looked after better.
Elephants in Indian circuses not only have to perform acts which do not normally enter a normal elephant’s life, but are cramped into cages, often beaten and mistreated. They need rescue very fast. Then there are elephants in temples, which may be better looked after than all the others, but are still outside their natural milieu. Project elephant may well start a new movement.
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