Madras HC asks for video dossier of all captive elephants in Tamil Nadu – Times of India

CHENNAI: The Madras high court has directed the forest department to prepare a video dossier of all captive elephants in the state, complete with details of each elephant including age, sex, lineage and how it ended in captivity.
“Every endeavour should be made to indicate how the elephant came to be captured or domesticated. The exercise should be completed by obtaining video-recordings of all the captive elephants in the state and providing the profile features in course of such video-recording or otherwise,” the court said.
The first bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice P D Audikesavalu passed the order on a batch of PILs alleging illtreatment of captive elephants, particularly in temples.
As far as the temple elephants are concerned, the principal chief conservator of forests should assign appropriate officials, along with doctors from the relevant areas, to inspect the elephants and ascertain the state of their health. This exercise may be conducted for all captive elephants in the state, but beginning with elephants in temples, the court said.
“Several aspects of how elephants are traded in by forest officials have been indicated in the presentation made by Elsa Foundation.
“The principal chief conservator of forests should respond to such an aspect of the matter by way of a report that may be filed,” the court said. The judges added that at any rate, the video-recordings as sought by this court should also be accompanied by a small report detailing how the video-recording was prepared, so that an element of accountability and authentication is evident.
As to the submissions made by another section of petitioners that elephants have been domesticated and used traditionally in religious and cultural programmes for years, the court said, “thankfully, there is still sufficient forest cover in this naturally endowed state.”
These forests boast of considerable wildlife, including the majestic elephant. Though the big animal may be restricted in its movement upon recent human attempts to eat away at forests from every edge, elephants live in the wild in Tamil Nadu at several places, particularly in the Nigiris, the court said.