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ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS

MONTH: October 2006

Elephant birth control introduced in India

 

About a dozen female elephants among the 30 elephants used for patrol work by the West Bengal Forest Department are soon to receive birth control implants, senior department official P.T. Bhutiya told news media in mid-September 2006.

 

"Our department is suffering a budget cut, so we have been asked to only maintain those elephants who are useful, and introduce birth control amongst the whole population," Bhutiya said. The forestry department herd formerly produced three or four offspring per year.

 

Of the estimated 400 elephants left in West Bengal, about 65-80 are captive work or exhibiton animals.

 

"Some who belong to the camps get impregnated when they go out to the forests to graze. The growing population has become a matter of concern for the authorities who find it difficult to provide the requisite fodder," West Bengal chief conservator of forests Ujjal Bhattacharjee explained to Marcus Dam of The Hindu in March 2006, when the agency first applied to the federal environment ministry for permission to use the contraceptive implants.

 

"This is just a killing exercise," objected Friends of Wetlands & Wildlife coordinator Mukuta Mukherjee. "If the government cannot feed the elephants, they should look for sponsors, but not do anything to cut down their population."

 

"We should be encouraging births among the wild population," countered Born Free Foundation consultant Ian Redmond to Kate Thomas of The Independent, "but elephants are complex social animals, and condemning newborn calves to a lifetime in captivity, in the absence of funds and a structured program that allows them to be reintroduced into the wild, would be questionable."