Owners of captive elephants reluctant to submit details

Captive elephant ownership certificate issuance runs into rough weather with majority of elephant owners reluctant to submit details sought by the Forest Department.

In a letter sent to Deputy Inspector General (Wildlife), Ministry of Environment and Forest by Forest Principal Secretary Sajan Peter, it was pointed out that out of the 700 captive elephants in the state only 400 had the ownership certificate. The owners were given an opportunity to declare the captive elephants and other animal articles possessed, from April 8, 2003 to October 18, 2003. Several applications reached the Forest and Wildlife Department butmany were rejected  as there was no proof of ownership.

The request to give more time for the elephant owners to submit application for ownership was rejected by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests.  Chief Wildlife Warden V Gopinath said that now micro chips had been implanted to all the captive elephants in the state. There is a data on the census of captive elephants but ownership certificate was given to only those who have submitted the applications earlier.  All Kerala Elephant Owners Federation secretary Albert Jose said that some of the elephant owners who bought them at auctions from timber plantations much earlier than the Declaration Act came into force had only a receipt as proof of ownership.

These receipts were not accepted by the Forest Department and hence several owners were not able to apply for the certificate. He added  that there was not much publicity for creating awareness on possession of ownership certificate. Sufficient time should be given to the owners to furnish the details.  According to Jose, there were 33 elephants under the Travancore Devaswom Board and around 25 of them did not have ownership certificates.

The denial of ownership certificates led to insurance companies not paying compensation for accidents and moreover permission is not granted by Forest Department for possession of tusk by owners when the elephant is dead.V K Venkitachalam, secretary, Heritage Animal Task Force, Thrissur, said that several applications did not have sufficient proof of ownership. In most of the cases it was declared that the elephants were received as a gift.