Jumbo owners smell something fishy
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Elephant Owners’ Federation has called the Forest Department’s move to bring elephant owners under the scanner as an attempt to divert the probe into the mass killings of elephants in the wild. However, the Federation declared its willingness to cooperate with the probe.
The vigilance wing of the Forest Department, probing into the poaching of wild elephants, has now shifted their focus to captive elephant owners.
A skilled ivory craftsman recently nabbed by the vigilance team had said that the best quality ivory came to the black market from the tusks of captive elephants.
A large proportion of this was allegedly sold in the form of ivory chunks or filings, which were accumulated after a tusk was trimmed.
“If the Forest Department feels that these tusks were supplied by owners, let them subject the elephants under our possession to investigation,” said Sasi, the state general secretary of Elephant Owners’ Federation.
“The size of a captive elephant’s tusk was recorded by the Department, first in 2008 when microchips were inserted in elephants and in 2012 when databook was provided. They just have to measure these tusks to know whether we have been smuggling ivory or not,” Sasi, who is also a member of the Animal Welfare Board, said. He said that there was not a single captive elephant without a databook.
According to Sasi, no elephant owner these days trims the tusks of elephants by sawing the extra growth it every four years.
“We maintain the length of the tusks by polishing it with a rough paper every month. This is what wild elephants do, they rub their tusks on rocky surfaces to keep their tusks at a convenient length,” he said.
The Federation general secretary also asked how the Forest Department had nearly 8000 tonnes of ivory in its strong rooms if owners were selling tusks in the black market.