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| Author : Pawan Sharma |
We all saw how Bijlee 58 year old elephant suffered begging on the streets of Mulund, she collapsed on 11 June 2013 and died on 30 June 2013 this all happened due to the negligence towards her health by her owners.
Many NGOs, animal lovers and individual came forward to help her and performed the best possible tasks to save her life. The most unfortunate of all was that the city as well as the state had no infrastructure for the treatment of such a large animal.
So the biggest question that comes forward is what are these animals doing here if there are no proper provisions for them ?
Elephants are protected under the schedule 1 of the Wildlife Protection Act WPA, 1972 and thus have the largest priority when it comes to the protection of these animals. But then what is actually happening ?
We all know the answers and it is the poor management of wildlife of the country.
The captive elephants come under domesticated wildlife and we should wonder why were these protected animals allowed to be owned by people. Adding to the motivation of elephants being owned, the government also allowed ownership certificates to the owners which in simple words were license to exploit!
The owners of these elephants used them to generate money through begging, entertaining and performing in the circus, giving joy rides or using the religious sentiments of the people and keeping them near temples and so on.
The concerned authority who is incharge of these animals are the real people who are at fault and there is a urgent need of changing the existing protocols in the country. It is believed that people can not purchase new elephants, but the more contemporary issue is of the existing domesticated ones.
Laxmi 18 year old elephant was a companion of late Bijlee, was rescued in July 2013 and was taken to a rescue center of Wildlife SOS after her license was canceled by the concerned forest department.
She was having a better life there and had improved her health complications under the care and treatment of Wildlife SOS.
We all know the fact that there are many loopholes in our system which has made us helpless at many places. Using those loopholes today the past owner of Laxmi is trying to get her custody back which has disappointed many animal lovers and organizations.
Infact it was expected that an offense against the past owners should have been booked by the state forest department for violating number of rules with addition to ignoring and neglecting the health and making the elephants beg within the city limits with a very strong follow up.
It is very unfortunate to witness the current happening, organizations and individuals who work for the betterment of animals and regulation of rules are having a tough time and the speechless animals suffering.
If this attitude and behavior towards protected wildkinds will keep taking place then it will not be a false statement that protection and conservation in the country is a total myth!
Other than Laxmi, there are many other elephants in different places in the country one of them is Sundar of Kolhapur and many more.
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