“The reason an elephant attacks humans or property is only because of habitat loss,” says an elephant trainer.
Moorthy killed 21 people and terrorized entire villages for years in southern India. He escaped a death sentence and was reeducated to earn a new life avoiding attacks by other wild elephants stalked by deforestation.
The huge 58-year-old gray plantigrade, recognizable by the bright pink spots that speckled its face, killed 12 people after trampling them in the southern state of Kerala.
Although the authorities ordered his death, Moorthy escaped to the neighboring state of Tamil Nadu, where he killed 10 other people.
But the rulers of that state “prohibited harm to the elephant” that was captured in 1998 and sent to the Theppakadu training camp, says its trainer Kirumaran.
“Since I trained Moorthy, many years ago, he has been an innocent child and has not hurt anyone,” this 55-year-old man told AFP.
“It is so calm that even if a small child plays with it or I hug it, it will not hurt,” he insists.
Founded in 1927, Theppakadu Elephant Camp is the largest in India. Semi-wild but trained, these elephants called “kumkis” like Moorthy are brought in each morning for a deep cleaning, and then released at night into the woods.
These animals have been trained to help manual labor. Their ability to carry up to 150 kilos makes them useful workers.
But herbivores also serve as “ecosystem engineers,” spending 16 hours each day foraging for food in their surroundings, spreading seeds as they go that aid reforestation.
Fear of attacks
Although the most important thing for the communities that surround the field is that these animals deter the incursions, increasingly frequent and aggressive, of wild elephants that venture into inhabited areas in search of food.
“Wild elephants come to the village and our children are vulnerable,” says Shanti Ganesh, a woman who lives nearby.
“Children have to go down the main road to school. We are always worried that they could be attacked, ”he insists.
Working with their “mahouts”, the elephant trainers, Theppakadu herd is trained to physically confront and drive the wild plantigrade out of the village.
Sometimes they also help surround and catch intruders so that they are brought into the field and trained to serve the local population.
“Here, Sankar, he had attacked and killed three people in the village and we were ordered to capture him,” explains the “mahout” Vikram, pointing to an animal behind him.
“We captured him with the help of other ‘kumkis’ and now we are training him as well.”
‘They attack because they are hungry’
India has a population of around 25,000 elephants, according to the World Wildlife Fund. That is 60% of the wild elephant population in Asia.
But human intrusion into its forests has generated conflict. “The reason an elephant attacks humans or property is only because of the loss of habitat,” says Kirumaran, the trainer.
“All the forests where they used to live have become towns or villages for humans. They attack because they are hungry ”, he argues.
More than 2,300 people died from elephant attacks in five years to 2019, according to data from the Indian government. In the same period, more than 500 elephants died, 333 were electrocuted and a hundred were hunted or poisoned.
Ananda Kumar, from the Nature Conservation Foundation of India, assures that the elephants involved in fatal attacks were possibly caused by violent attitudes of humans who tried to repel them.
“That elephant may have been hunted for months,” he tells AFP. “It is a type of torture suffered by elephants who have to stand up,” he adds.
This activist claims that he has personally seen an elephant shot so many times that a veterinarian extracted a hundred bullets from its body once it died.
Experts say that ending this conflict between humans and elephants depends on protecting and expanding the habitat of these large animals and connecting isolated areas of forest to create corridors through which to move.
“When considering a development project, you need to take into account the effect on species like elephants and the people in these forest areas,” says Kumar. (I)
Paul is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment and general news. He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established herself as a respected voice in the industry.
