RISHIKESH, northern India – Raja, a 19-year-old elephant with grimy ivory tusks, sways morosely from side to side while standing chained under an asbestos-roofed shed in the Rajaji National Park, a last major refuge of the Asiatic elephant roaming the Himalayan foothills in eastern India.
An air of torment surrounds young Raja, even as he fussily picks at his late morning snack of sugar cane, part of the 200 kilograms of vegetarian food and 100 liters of water that the elephant needs as its daily diet.
“Raja is moody, troubled and often angry,” elephant keeper Riyas
Khan explained to me on a cloudy Tuesday morning. “He cannot be trusted with people, and is often disturbed.”
Raja has every reason to be disturbed. He was part of a family of six wild elephants struck in a train accident seven years ago on the rail track cutting through the wildlife reserve. Raja was the sole survivor. Forest officials rescued the baby orphan, and he lives with two other rescued and now tamed young elephants adjacent to the Rajaji National Park entrance gate.
To prevent similar tragedies from harming the Asiatic elephant, among the 5,000 endangered species struggling to survive in a human-dominated planet, India’s wildlife and national highway officials are planning the world’s first exclusive flyover for elephants.
The proposed US$13 million flyover across the Rajaji National Park would prevent elephant deaths, say senior Forest Department officials, a frequent tragedy as elephants cross the highway and railway track running through the wildlife reserve or run into the traffic between the nearby pilgrim towns of Haridwar and Rishikesh.
The flyover will feature two corridors, each 1.2 kilometers long and 100 meters wide, and is expected to be ready in nine months, soon after India’s Supreme Court consents to the plan from the National Highway Authorities of India.
The jumbo flyover is another step towards saving the Asiatic elephant, scientifically called Elephas Maximus, whose current population is estimated to be only around 45,000, compared to 600,000 African elephants.
Even though the larger African elephant population has also dramatically shrunk from about five million between the 1930s and 1940s, wildlife conservationists say the African jumbo (Loxodonta Africana) does not face the threat of extinction as seriously as its smaller Asian cousin.
Possible dangers include poachers murdering elephants for their ivory, which sells in the illegal market for US$1,000 a tusk. Elephants also run into conflict with encroaching villagers across eastern India, from Uttarakhand to Chattisgarh and Assam states. It’s a violent, vicious cycle with fatalities on both sides.
Villagers complain of elephants ravaging their crops and fields, and the jumbos are angry at having their traditional habitat invaded by humans. Electric fences, as well as frightened villagers lighting fires and beating drums to scare away elephants at night, have limited success.
India’s elephant flyover could bring greater peace to the Rajaji National Park area that covers the three districts of Dehradun, Haridwar and Pauri Garhwal of Uttarakhand state.
An estimated 26,000 Asiatic elephants can be found across India, while a possible equal and shrinking number roam in forests and sanctuaries in Thailand, Nepal, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Bhutan, China, Malaysia, Indonesia and Bangladesh.
From my base in the pleasant Green Hills Cottage in Rishikesh, I ventured to explore the terrain of the world’s first elephant flyover to help save the Asiatic elephant.
India’s Rajaji National Park is one of 24 major wildlife reserves in India. Just as the Corbett National Park, 225kms away, is famous for its tiger population, this reserve is known for its high Asiatic elephant population. The 825 square kilometer area also houses 23 other mammal species including tigers, leopards and the Himalayan bear, as well as 315 bird species.
The 25-year-old Rajaji National Park, named after independent India’s second governor-general, Chakravarti Rajagopalachari (1878-1972), reflects the urgency to preserve the Asiatic elephant. In fact, the reserve has 10 million-year-old fossils of 50 species of elephants. Only one of those 50 elephant species now survives as the Asiatic elephant.
I took the 19km route to the Rajaji National Park entrance near Haridwar, one of the oldest living cities of the world. Next year, over 3 million pilgrims will take the same road as part of the Kumbh Mela, an ancient religious gathering of millions held every three years, when pilgrims take a ritualistic dip in the river Ganges.
An estimated 3 million people would be trampling along the Haridwar-Rishikesh road during the next Kumbh Mela in 2010, and the elephant flyover hopes to avoid conflict during this mass human-elephant movement.
The busy Haridwar-Rishikesh road can produce surprises, from Western renunciates on motorbikes to, as on this day, a white-haired, saffron-robed ascetic carrying a white cloth bag with a picture of Tarzan emblazoned on it – the lord of the African jungles posing in his legendary chest-thumping battle cry “Kreegah! Tarzan Bundalo!”
“Wild elephants cause a lot of trouble on the road at night,” said the driver of the shared tempo-rickshaw I took for part of the journey, from under his cap with “Harley Davidson” emblazoned on it.
At the Haridwar Dam checkpoint guarding the restricted bypass road to the Rajaji National Park, forest guard Anil Aryan expressed his approval of the elephant flyover. “It’s very necessary,” he said, sporting a jacket with “Pierre Cardin” emblazoned on the back. “The flyovers would help the approximate 3,700 elephants living here, as well as elephant deaths from railway accidents.”
After buying a cup of tea brewed over a wood fire, I chose to walk to the Rajaji National Park 3.5km away, instead of waiting for transport. The peace and quiet of the lonely forest road was broken only by bird song, the drone of insects and the occasional vehicle or cyclist passing by.
A wooden-barricaded check-post announced my arrival at the Rajaji National Park, with a small cluster of buildings at the entrance, including a reception area selling entrance tickets, a canteen, a few ramshackle staff residences and a deserted forest guest house.
A few jeep drivers offering $17 safari-rides milled about. The $4 two-hour elephant ride into the reserve was stopped when the beloved 70-year-old female elephant Arundhati died in 2007, after fracturing her leg.
“Business is slow, even though this is the tourist season,” said Suresh Chand, who told me he has been a private guide here for 14 years. “Fewer Western tourists arrived after the November 26 terrorist strikes in Mumbai. Usually we see many Americans.”
The moody elephant Raja and his two companions instantly attract a group of five tourists from France, particularly the nine-year-old baby elephant Yogi who was rescued when found wandering alone lost in the neighboring forests.
Unlike the perhaps misunderstood Raja struggling to come to terms with seeing his family slaughtered by a train, Yogi is a friendly fellow who amiably offers his little trunk for “handshakes” with anyone coming near him. Feeling Yogi’s strong, playful jab gives one an idea of the awesome power of an adult elephant’s trunk that can lift 250kgs of weight.
“Yogi is fully trained,” explained elephant keeper Riyas Khan. “But Mamta [the 17-year-old third elephant, also rescued as a baby after being found alone in the forest] is a lazy one. She is stubborn, won’t listen to anyone and won’t do any work.”
Raja, Mamta and the baby elephant Yogi, who gloriously ignore each other, represent a 60 million-year history of elephants, compared to our merely 300,000-year-old modern human story.
Local mourning over Arudhati’s death played a role in reviving the elephant’s standing as a revered species across Asia. Vinaya (V 1:337-357) of the Tipitaka, the Pali language record of the Buddha’s teachings, narrates how the elephant Parileyyaka looked after the Buddha, fetching him wild fruits and water during the Enlightened One’s solitary stay in the Parileyya forest during the monsoon of the 45th year of his life.
Colorful annual elephant festivals are celebrated in many Asian countries, such as “Thrissur Pooram” in Kerala state and the Jaipur Elephant festival in India, the ElefantAsia in Laos, Surin Elephant festival in Thailand and the Kandy Elephant festival in Sri Lanka. The elephant-headed boy god Ganesha is the most popular deity in India’s financial capital Mumbai.
Asiatic elephants can also be clever artists. In 2000, the National Elephant Institute in Chiang Mai, Thailand established the Elephant Art Gallery, which displays paintings made by elephants using brush, paint and canvas without any human aid.
Celebrity elephant artists such as Japatee, donated as a baby elephant by the Jerusalem Zoo and with a Thai nickname Phlai Ngam meaning “Beautiful Tusks”, does abstract art, while the 16-year-old playful elephant Jojo, ranked among the top three of the 14 artistic jumbos in Thailand, has had his paintings sold for thousands of dollars in international art auctions. His recent artworks include “Angels will Prevail” that sold for $397 and “Colorful Illusion” that sold for $369.
According to his biographical note, “Jojo is also an accomplished musician, who plays both the xylophone and the mouth organ, which he blows with his trunk.”
Raja, who when as a fully grown Asian bull elephant could be 10 feet tall, weigh five tons and live to age 60, can be a useful worker, if not a temperamental artist or musician. World Wildlife Fund, a leading global conservation group, points out that domesticated elephants are used in South and Southeast Asia in rugged forestry work, including anti-poaching patrolling.
Riyas Khan, who says his family has trained elephants for many generations, also approves of the elephant flyover. “It would be a wonderful development for elephants, killed in many numbers in the railway tracks.”
The two elevated elephant flyovers, each 300 meters wide at the entrances and 600 meters apart, will rise at a gradual slope. The concrete side walls will be lined with local trees and foliage, to ensure elephants feel at home while using the flyovers for safe forest crossings.
That elephants in the region are troubled became more evident during the 40km safari ride I took into the striking terrain of the Rajaji National Park, through an impressive mixture of open savannah-grasslands, dry river beds that become gushing torrents during monsoon rains, streams and woodland brooks, sal forests in lowlands and higher altitude pine forests.
As the cloudy afternoon gave way to a cold, rainy evening, a family of three elephants rushed to and fro erratically through the forest in the murky gloom, their trumpeting sounding similar to the forlorn cry of the movie dinosaurs in Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park series.
One trumpeting elephant suddenly charged out of the darkening forest into the dusty path of the safari jeep. It had either remembered an urgent appointment across the path, or was attacking the visitors. The driver Aleem Ali stepped on the accelerator and sped away. The sudden sight of a fast charging wild elephant is not for the faint-hearted. “If the elephant appears right ahead on the road facing the vehicle, there is not much chance of escape,” said Aleem.
Yet the Rajaji National Park, protecting elephants and other species from receiving a Jurassic Park fate, has moments of peace as well. “Sometimes we see a herd of about 40 elephants quietly moving together,” said Aleem Ali. His elder brother Liaquat had earlier mentioned once seeing an elephant and a tiger standing peacefully side by side, watching the watchers go by.
The world’s first elephant flyovers will promote wildlife and human harmony. “Even the smaller animals like leopards would be able to use the flyovers,” said guide Suresh Chand. “Two days ago, we saw a leopard come here near the gate at around 4:00pm. Wild elephants often come here at night.” The elephant flyover hopes to end such unexpected sightings, and the fear leading to violence among species
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