Kerala forest dept has launched a programme to implant a chip behind the left ear of each of the captive elephants in the state.
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Guruvayur Padmanabhan and Pambadi Rajan may not need identity cards among elephant aficionados. In a few days, however, these pachyderms will have something more than its distinct built and legendary lore as identification - microchips tucked inside their skin. The Kerala forest department has launched a programme to implant an electronic chip behind the left ear of each of the captive elephants in the state. The chip will contain a personal number, which can recall the history of the wearer.
“The exercise started on October 2, coinciding with the Wildlife Week. It is going to be a massive project as we still don’t know how many captive elephants are there in Kerala. It is also going to be a survey on captive elephants,” chief wildlife warden V Gopinath said. According to various estimates, there are 700-900 captive elephants in Kerala.
The project was kicked off in Kollam by forest minister Binoy Viswam on October 2, when about 40 elephants in the district were implanted with the microchip. “The chip contains a number that can be read by an electronic device. The number when fed into our database presents all data on the particular animal,” he added. The chip can be easily implanted by a veterinary surgeon.
Barring their celebrity counterparts, most of the captive elephants in the state are left at the whims and fancies of their owners and mahouts. Even the forest department does not have a clear idea on the number of elephants at work in temples and timber plantations. The present intervention is intended to keep a tab on the condition of captive elephants.
“The aim of the project is very simple. It helps us to monitor each of the captive elephants. We could keep a tab on how they are maintained, transported, transacted and treated by their owners,” Gopinath said. He said the project was long overdue in Kerala, equally famous for its fancy for and cruelty to elephants.
“I am not claiming that the step will immediately end cruelty to elephants. But we at least have a monitoring mechanism at place. We will develop our database on this and make all efforts to protect our captive elephants,” he added. Mortality among captive elephants has been a cause for concern in Kerala, where the big animals fall prey to torture or insurance frauds.
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