Elephant Expert Visiting Manyam Ahead of Kumki Deployment
Elephant expert Raman Sukumar visits Parvathipuram Manyam to guide kumki deployment and assess preparations for sheltering wild elephants.
By : K.M.P. PATNAIK
Update: 2025-05-22 17:50 GMT
Visakhapatnam: Well-known Indian ecologist Raman Sukumar, an expert in elephants, is visiting Parvathipuram Manyam district to study the ground situation ahead of deploying the kumki elephants.
Kumkis are being pressed into service to drive the wild elephants to a temporary shelter being developed for them in the Guchimi forest in Seethanagaram mandal.
The district has 12 wild elephants, including two juveniles, said conservator of forests B. Mohamed Diwan Mydeen.
“It is difficult to handle the calves because their mother will get enraged. We need kumki elephants and a mahout to handle these elephants and bring them to the temporary shelter. The preparations we are making in this regard will be assessed by expert Sukumar,” Mydeen disclosed.
“It is difficult to handle the calves because their mother will get enraged. We need kumki elephants and a mahout to handle these elephants and bring them to the temporary shelter. The preparations we are making in this regard will be assessed by expert Sukumar,” Mydeen disclosed.
The elephant expert has had a long stint in the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru. He had helped design the Nilgiris Biosphere Reserve, the first of its kind in India. In 1997, he set up the Asian Nature Conservation Foundation, a public charitable trust that incorporates the Asian Elephant Research and Conservation Centre, an organisation that has carried out several field projects in India and other Asian countries on elephants and their habitats.
Ahead of the kumkis’ arrival, brisk arrangements are being made at the 400-acre temporary shelter in the Guchimi forest. The shelter will have kraals, water tanks, swimming pools and quarters for mahouts. A trench has been dug around the camp with solar fencing to prevent the elephants from escaping the camp.
Wild elephants in Manyam district have not only killed 12 persons during the last one decade, but destroyed property and crops worth more than ₹6 crore in the district.
Driving the wild elephants into the temporary shelter will relieve the tension among the area’s villagers, many of whom spend sleepless nights fearing an elephant attack.