A group of experts trains elephants who have killed dozens of locals to protect these villages from further attacks by pachyderms
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, which are rampant by human encroachment, deforestation and starvation.
The huge 58-year-old gray plantigrade, recognizable by the bright pink spots that speckled its face, killed twelve 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, which was captured in 1998 and sent to the Theppakadu training camp, as explained by its trainer Kirumaran M. “Since I trained Moorthy, many years ago, he has been an innocent child and He has not hurt anyone, “this 55-year-old man told Afp. “He is so calm that even if a child plays with him or I hug him, it will not hurt him,” 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 in the woods. They are in charge of aborting the increasingly frequent and aggressive forays of wild elephants venturing 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 close. “Children have to go down the main road to school. We are always concerned that they may be attacked, “he insists.
Harassed animals
Working with their ‘mahouts’, (drivers), the Theppakadu herd is trained to physically confront and drive away the wild plantigrade from the village. Sometimes they also help surround and catch intruders so they are brought into the field and trained.
It is not a minor activity. India has a population of around 25,000 elephants, 60% of the wild herds in Asia. More than 2,300 people have died from pachyderm attacks in the last five years.
Ananda Kumar of the Nature Conservation Foundation of India indicates that many elephants involved in fatal attacks were caused by violent humans who tried to repel them. He claims to have seen an elephant shot so many times that a veterinarian extracted 100 bullets from his body after he died.
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