3rd kumki training centre to come up in Kovai

Tamil Nadu is likely to get a new ‘captive elephant management and welfare centre’ to tame and train wild jumbos into kumkis at Chadivayal in Coimbatore district by the yearend. 

There are two captive elephant management centres located in The Nilgiris - Top Slip in Anaimalai Tiger Reserve (ATR) and Theppakadu in Mudumalai Tiger Reserve (MTR). But the new facility will be the first centre to come up in plains. 

“The captive elephant management and welfare centre at Chadivayal elephant camp, in Coimbatore will be ready by December 2018. A kral (a wooden enclosure where captured wild elephants are confined for training) will be set up at a cost of Rs 10 lakh under ‘Project Elephant’. Elephants which get injured and those in conflict can be rescued and trained at the centre,” said Deepak Srivastava, Chief Conservator of Forests (CCF), Coimbatore Circle. 

The captured rogue elephants are usually tamed and trained into kumkis to be engaged in mitigating conflicts arising out of wild elephants in residential pockets. The elephants are also taught obedience skills and to follow commands, so that they could be used for tourist safari. 

Wild elephants trapped in Coimbatore were so far taken on an arduous road journey to ATR or MTR to train them into kumkis. “It used to be a risky journey as the jumbos had to travel about 100 km to reach any of these hill camps. The trapped elephant would be aggressive and had to be kept under strong sedation until they reach the training centre by vehicles,” a forest department staff added. 

The elephants that are kept under long hours of sedation sometimes might take a toll on the health as in the case of Madukarai ‘Maharaj’, a rogue jumbo, which died presumably due to an overdose of drug. The jumbo was captured from Coimbatore outskirts and was taken to ATR, where it breathed its last while being trained inside a krawl, a year ago. 

At the new centre in Chadivayal there are two elephants already; Cheran (32) and John (27). They are being deployed on missions to drive away wild elephants straying out of the forests in the animal-human conflict-prone Coimbatore district. “The services of these two kumkis can be used to capture and tame the wild elephants in Coimbatore and its surrounding regions. With the availability of two kumkis, one can be trained in a kral at a time,” the forest department staff added. 

K Kalidas from Osai, an environmental NGO, said that setting up an elephant management centre in Coimbatore is a welcome move. “Problematic elephants, which are highly in conflict with human beings were translocated to another location. But scientists are against translocation as it would lead to shifting of the problem from one place to another area. So the best option is to capture them and train them in camps,” he said.

However, Kalidas said for the elephants at ATR and MTR there are perennial water sources. “There is Chinnar river in Top Slip and Moyar in The Nilgiris. But there are no such perennial water sources at Chadivayal in Coimbatore. Also the trained elephants can be left free in their natural habitat during the night and they usually come back to the camp in the mornings in the hill region. It cannot be done here due to the threat of conflict with other wild elephants,” he said. 

Environmentalists suggested that after getting tamed, the elephant should be moved over to neither ATR nor MTR for their better living. A trained elephant would also co-operate well during its journey. 

New management Centre proposed in Coimbatore

Kral to be set up at a cost of Rs 10 lakh

Elephants in conflict will be trapped and trained into kumkis

One elephant can be trained at a time

Elephant breaching incidents in Coimbatore Forest Division: 1806

Elephant driving operations 1667

Crop raids  779

Breaching by elephant groups: 59.6 per cent

Mettupalayam range recorded highest breaching incidents 626

Breaching by solitary males 36%

Compensation paid for crop loss: Rs 47, 01,410

Compensation paid for property damage by elephants: 7,72,113