As part of a temporary arrangement for summer, authorities of the Anamalai Tiger Reserve (ATR) have shifted 26 captive elephants from the Kozhikamuthi elephant camp near Top Slip in Coimbatore district to four other places within the reserve.
Water in a stream, which flows through the Kozhikamuthi camp, became inadequate for all the elephants and, hence, the animals were shifted.
Bhargava Teja, Deputy Director of the Pollachi Division of the ATR, however, said that the practice of splitting the camp elephants in summer was usual. “It is a routine practice. Usually, some elephants are shifted to Varagaliar and Chinnar in summer. This year, they have been moved to other places too,” he said.
Of the 26 elephants in the camp, one of the oldest in the country along with the Theppakadu camp in the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve (MTR), 10 were shifted to the nearby Varagaliar.
While five elephants were moved to a place close to the Kozhikamuthi camp, six were shifted to Chinnar. The remaining were moved to a place in the Manambolly forest range of the ATR.
Authorities of the ATR said that the measure was also taken to facilitate construction of houses for mahouts and ‘cavadis’ attached to the elephant camp. In March last year, Chief Minister M.K. Stalin had announced houses for them, while felicitating Bomman and Bellie — the mahout couple from the MTR who were featured in the Oscar-winning Indian documentary The Elephant Whisperers. In Kozhikamuthi, 47 Malasar tribesmen, who work as mahouts and ‘cavadis’, would get houses. The elephants were expected to remain at the four alternative places for a few months in view of the construction work.
As per the practice, a day at the camp begins at 6 a.m. when mahouts and ‘cavadis’ take their camp elephants to the stream for a bath, after which the animals are given nutritious breakfast. The mahouts and assistants then take the elephants to the forest patches around the camp to graze till the evening. Visitors come to the camp in the morning, mainly to witness the camp elephants being fed.
