Kumkis sought to keep wild elephants at bay in Wayanad

E.M. Manoj
KALPETTA,  
The Hindu, November 4, 2014 

The State Forest and Wildlife Department is preparing to procure Kumki (trained) elephants from Karnataka to drive crop-raiding wild elephants back into forests in Wayanad district.

The State Chief Wildlife Warden had requested his counterpart in Karnataka for six trained elephants to tackle the wild elephant menace in the district a few months ago, and the latter had agreed in principle to transfer the elephants. “We are awaiting a formal letter from the Karnataka government for transfer of the elephants,” Pramod G. Krishnan, Conservator, Northern circle (Wildlife), Palakkad, told The Hindu .

The Karnataka Forest Department would also provide the services of mahouts till the Kerala Forest Department trained its mahouts for the purpose, he said.

The elephants would be kept permanently here, and it was expected that the Kumki elephant squad would tackle the increasing wild elephant menace up to an extent, Mr. Pramod said.

Though the Forest Department has two tamed elephants at the elephant kraal at Muthanga in the district, they are yet to be trained to drive the crop-raiding pachyderms back into the forests, Forest Department sources said.

When the crop raids had increased considerably a few months ago, the officials of the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary planned to attach radio collar on the pachyderms after tranquillizing them. As many as five wild elephants were identified in different forest divisions of the sanctuary.

However, the project could not materialise owing to the dearth of radio collars, which were to be supplied by the WWF free of cost after import from South Africa.

The WWF could not provide it in time owing to technical reasons, but we have requested them to provide as many as six radio collars for future use, the sources said.