Agra :
Over a hundred elephants march up and down the Amer fort in Jaipur every day carrying tourists. Many of these elephants have severe welfare issues and concerns stem mainly from lack of expert veterinary care and ignorance about elephant care and management by local elephant care takers in Jaipur. Wildlife SOS in collaboration with Rajasthan Forest Department has launched a series of training workshops for elephant owners and mahouts on elephant care and management. The training workshops have been a trumpeting success with over 75 participants attending the first workshop.
The training workshop had both theory and classroom sessions conducted by elephant veterinarians from the Wildlife SOS Elephant Conservation and Care Centre followed by practical sessions with elephants. To create further awareness and bring about compassion, Wildlife SOS hosted a field exposure visit for the elephant owners and mahouts at the Elephant Conservation and Care Centre in Mathura where the Wildlife SOS elephant care team showed practical humane and scientific elephant management techniques practised at the centre. This was followed by participative discussions and lunch.
Assistant conservator of forests Jagdish Chand Gupta, who accompanied elephant owners from Jaipur, said, “We want to adopt modern and positive elephant management and training techniques as a step to improve the condition for the elephants. This workshop proved to be a motivation for the elephant owners who are keen on adopting these methods.”
Kartick Satyanarayan, CEO and co-founder of Wildlife SOS, said “The Wildlife SOS Elephant Conservation and Care Centre has model standards for humane elephant management and functions as a training platform to create similar facilities across India. Chief Wildlife Warden of Rajasthan Dr G V Reddy has shown great foresight and vision in facilitating these workshops to train stakeholders involved in elephant care so we can work together to improve the living conditions of elephants in Jaipur.”
Geeta Seshamani, co-founder of Wildlife SOS, said, “I am very happy to see the elephant owners and mahouts see and learn new methods of managing elephants with compassion and without the need for intimidation. The visit hosted by Wildlife SOS will go a long way to helping these people change the way they are managing and caring for their elephants”
Dr. Yaduraj Khadpekar, senior veterinarian in charge of the Wildlife SOS Elephant Care Centre, said “The training workshop and subsequent exposure visit to the Elephant Conservation and Care Centre quenched the curiosity of the elephant owners about how Wildlife SOS manages the elephants in our care. It also provided insight into modern management techniques available for providing humane care to elephants.
Rhea Lopez, Elephant campaign manager of Wildlife SOS, said “The workshop covered aspects of enclosure design, positive conditioning, veterinary care, elephant behaviour, enrichment, foot care and the elephant owners and mahouts were receptive & participated in all discussions.”
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News> City News> Agra News / Aditya Devi / February 10th, 2017