For Immediate Release:
18 October 2024
Contact:
Hiraj Laljani; HirajL@petaindia.org
Sanskriti Bansore; SanskritiB@petaindia.org
Saran – Following a series of horrific incidents on Saturday in which an elephant upset by the cruelty of captivity killed a person in the Saran district of Bihar and destroyed property while carrying children for a ride, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India fired off a letter to Bihar’s chief wildlife warden requesting the rehabilitation of the distressed elephant at a sanctuary where the animal can live free from chains and weapons.
The video of the elephant running wild while giving children a ride upon request.
“Elephants who are chained, bullied, and threatened with weapons are known to attack, lashing out in fear after becoming frustrated by the cruelty of captivity,” says PETA India Director of Advocacy Khushboo Gupta. “PETA India is appealing to the chief wildlife warden to urgently rehabilitate this elephant at a sanctuary to heal from the injuries sustained by ramming vehicles and the trauma of captivity and to live without weapons and chains.”
When elephants attack humans, the animals are often punished with beatings, which only increases their frustration and distress. PETA India has repeatedly highlighted the dangers associated with using captive elephants. Just this year, in February, an elephant named Gouri at Amer Fort near Jaipur attacked a Russian tourist, and an elephant at Blangad Bhagavathy Temple in Chavakkad injured four people. In March, in Pattambi near Palakkad, an elephant brought there for a temple festival ran amok, injuring one human, causing the death of two cows, and damaging property. In another incident in March during the Arattupuzha Pooram festival in Thrissur, one elephant charged at and chased another, causing severe panic among thousands of devotees, including children, who ran for safety. In April at a ceremony at TV Puram Sree Ramaswami Temple in Vaikom near Kottayam, an elephant attacked and killed a mahout, and in the same month in West Bengal, a mahout was killed at the ISKCON Mayapur temple by one of the two elephants kept there. In June, at an illegal safari park in Idukki, an elephant named Lakshmi crushed a mahout to death. In July, an elephant named Kadakkachaal Ganeshan went on a rampage and injured a mahout near Thrissur.
PETA India notes that many captive elephants in India are being held illegally or have been transported from one state to another without permission. Elephants are wild animals, and training them to be used for ceremonies, rides, tricks, and other purposes is done by violently dominating them, including by beating them into submission and using weapons to inflict pain. Many elephants held captive in temples or used for rides suffer from extremely painful foot problems and leg wounds due to being chained on concrete for hours on end. Most of them are denied adequate food, water, veterinary care, and any semblance of a natural life. Under these hellish conditions, many elephants become intensely frustrated and lash out, sometimes killing mahouts, devotees, tourists, or other humans. According to the Heritage Animal Task Force, captive elephants killed 526 people in Kerala in a 15-year period.
PETA India encourages the use of life-like mechanical elephants or other non-animal means in place of real elephants and advocates for elephants already in captivity to be retired to sanctuaries where they could live unchained and in the company of other elephants, healing psychologically and physically from the trauma of years of isolation, captivity, and abuse.
Mechanical elephants are already used by at least eight temples and are loved by devotees and local politicians alike. Out of these, five were donated by PETA India – Irinjadappilly Raman at Sree Krishna Temple in Thrissur, Mahadevan at Thrikkayil Mahadeva Temple in Kochi, Baladhasan at Sree Pournamikavu Temple in Thiruvanthapuram, Shiva at Jagadguru Sri Veerasimhasana Mahasamsthana Math in Karnataka, and Niranjana at Yedeyur Sri Siddalingeshwara Swamy Temple in Karnataka.
PETA India – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment” – opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETAIndia.com or follow the group on X, Facebook, or Instagram.
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