Elephants Run Amok in India Due to Abuse, Pollution

In a deluge of incidents since last October, 14 people have been trampled or gored to death by rampaging elephants in the Indian state of Kerala. The usually mild-mannered, peaceful animals have likely been driven to retaliate due to polluted conditions and widespread abuse.

In fact, these events merely mark the latest in a string of 938 instances over the last 3 years where elephants have run amok. During that span, 207 of the animals have died from mistreatment, and 70 mahouts, or elephant trainers, have been killed in the wake.

• » See also: Mistaken Identity: Hunters Kill Endangered Pygmy Hippo During Pig Hunt!
• » Get EcoWorldly by RSS or sign up by email.

This is the adverse, ugly face of the region’s annual temple festival season, held between October and April, when elephants are overworked and paraded around between temples and religious processions in the name of ceremony, ritual and reverence. Unfortunately, that reverence is often only symbolic.

“It is a paradox that we worship elephants inside temples and ill-treat them outside. No Hindu scripture says elephants should be used for temple festivals,’’ said Kummanam Rajasekharan, general secretary of the Hindu Aikyavedi.

Elephants have to be specially trained to tolerate the clamorous noise, dust and heat of the stressful religious processions, though since demand is so high, the beasts are often ill-prepared and rushed between ceremonies by their mahouts. Furthermore, although there are regulations and laws which prohibit transporting an elephant between events without adequate rest, those rules are rarely followed. The animals are often made to speedily walk for miles between processions to save money transporting them by truck.

In order to compensate for inadequate training, unskilled mahouts will often starve, beat and poke their elephants with sharp hooks to keep them under control. Moreover, they’ll often intoxicate their elephants to mask the signs that an animal is in heat– a period for bull elephants marked by heightened testosterone levels and increased aggression– since it is illegal and unsafe to use an elephant for festivals and processions when those signs are present.

Elephants are usually shackled by chains which link one fore limb to a hind limb, making it impossible for them to rest or move about comfortably. The streets during a procession are also often unsanitary, littered with trash and pollution, adding to a desperate sense of claustrophobia that the sensitive animals must feel. It is also unhealthy for their feet to stand and walk on concrete or pavement for long periods at a time, which further leads to the animals’ outrage.

When the elephants do begin to retaliate, the procession crowds will often respond by hurling rocks, crackling fireworks and banging drums. Is it any wonder that these poor creatures are fighting back?

These recent deaths have spawned PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) to take action. The group has launched a campaign to raise public awareness about the mistreatment and abuse, and it is taking legal action to ensure that regulations in place to protect the animals are enforced.

Traditionally, mahouts are raised from boyhood to handle their elephants, and each young mahout is typically attached to one elephant for the duration of that elephant’s life. Though despite this, not all mahouts are taught to handle their elephants with care and affection. The Sanskrit language distinguishes between three types of mahouts: those who use love to control their elephants, those who use ingenuity to outsmart them, and those who control elephants with abuse and cruelty.

It’s probably a safe bet that mahouts of the first type weren’t the ones responsible for the elephants involved in these tragic deaths.

Image Credit: Sarah and Iain on Flickr under a Creative Commons License

Tweet This Post