Elephants being transferred cross-country, but under what conditions?
The stopping of a consignment of a large group of elephants being transferred to faraway Gujarat in open trucks by local people in Tinsukhia in Assam has led to calls by environmentalists to keep a tight leash on such translocations, saying that cross-country journeys in open vehicles are too tough on elephants. This, after similar incidents last year and in 2019.
Late Thursday (April 20) night, a group of people in Assam’s Tinsukhia district stopped a convoy of 49 Gujarat-registered (that is, having Gujarat number plates) vehicles carrying 25 wild elephants, saying the animals were being smuggled.
Police arrived at the spot, followed by forest department officials, who showed a court order directing the transfer. However, the trucks were then taken to a safe zone by the police.
According to state officials, the animals were being shifted from Arunachal’s Namsai forest area to Gujarat’s Jamnagar, where they are to be handed over to the Radhe Krishna Temple Elephant Welfare Trust (RKTEWT), a Reliance Industries Limited (RIL)-supported organisation which provides life-long care to animals. RIL is also developing a large zoo near its refinery complex in Jamnagar.
After a similar incident last year, when elephants from Assam were caught by Odisha officials while being transferred to the same organisation in Gujarat with false no-objection certificates, the Tripura High Court had in November constituted a high-powered committee headed by former Supreme Court judge Deepak Verma to keep a vigil on the transporting of elephants from the north-east to Gujarat.
The committee’s reach was later expanded by the Supreme Court to include the whole of India. The transfer was, however, cleared after the drivers produced permit from the chief wildlife wardens of Arunachal Pradesh and Gujarat.
However, environmentalists have criticised the latest move, primarily on two counts. One is that the elephants were being transferred over long distances in this heat under harsh conditions, being in open trucks. And their second objection is that the intended place does not have proper conditions to take care of the animals.
Interestingly, another move in 2019 to translocate elephants in open trucks from Assam to the Jagannath Temple in Gujarat’s Ahmedabad had been called off after an expert veterinary committee of the Assam government said that there was “every possibility of a heatstroke” the elephants could suffer on their long journey.
Hence the question remains, how can any court order permit such a transfer of elephants in open trucks over such long distances now under the same conditions?
