hile the process of registration of captive elephants has been completed in the State, official records bring to light the violation of statutory laws in several instances.
The registration exercise was launched on August 18 following a Supreme Court directive and a period of six weeks was set for its completion.
As per official statistics, 499 captive elephants have been registered by the district committees across the State.
These were among 599 applications received for registration. While 13 applications were rejected due to various anomalies, the others were in the verification process.
Statistics on captive elephants differed with those possessed by the Forest and Wildlife Department a few months ago. In a reply to a query posed through the Right to Information Act in May, the department had stated that there were 684 captive elephants in Kerala.
Of the 599 captive elephants believed to be in the State, nearly 289 were being maintained without Ownership Certificate, which has been mandated by Section 42 of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. It has been learnt, through official documents accessed by The Hindu , that no guidelines have been issued to avoid ambiguity in the registration process. While a majority of the 162 elephants were registered in Thrissur by mere submission of the application form, the District Committee in Alappuzha conducted registration for those having any one of the three related documents, viz., ownership certificate, microchip certificate or data book.
Moreover, of the 113 elephants that were registered by Devaswoms, only 38 were provided housing facilities as per the prescribed norms. The housing facilities for captive elephants, owned by private individuals, were yet to be ascertained.
Arbitrary manner
Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI) co-opted member Gauri Maulekhi said that the registration process was being conducted in an arbitrary manner. “The Chief Wildlife Warden has issued a letter to the District Collectors to register all elephants without proper verification of documents.
This was in direct violation of the Supreme Court directive. The AWBI has issued a notice of the Chief Wildlife Warden,” she said.
The registration exercise was launched on August 18 following a Supreme Court directive
