Wild Asian Elephant Tortured to Death

NEW DELHI, India, March 6, 2003 (ENS) - An endangered wild Asian elephant caught in a management program sanctioned and paid for by a state government in India, has died at the hands of its captors. The torture that claimed its life, and the death itself, was filmed by an award winning crew hired by the state to document its elephant management program, according to the International Fund for Animal Welfare and its Indian partner the Wildlife Trust of India.

Environment and wildlife filmmaker Mike Pandey's crew recorded the animal's treatment and death while covering the elephant program in the central Indian state of Chattisgarh.

The TV crew had been commissioned to film the $76,000 project by the regional government, which sponsored the work to manage human-elephant conflicts. The government attempts to manage these conflicts by capturing wild elephants displaced by interaction with humans and taming them to become working animals.

In a statement today, the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) described the torture to which the young bull elephant was subjected. "The wild Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) was first captured by lasso before being tied down and having its tusks hacked off with a saw, while being repeatedly jabbed with spikes and hit with bamboo rods. It was later denied food and water, and eventually died of stress, starvation and thirst after 18 days," IFAW said.

Young bull Asian elephant like the one that died from torture in captivity (Photo courtesy U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service)

"We are shocked and dismayed by the gruesome and disturbing footage of this torture of an elephant," said Grace Gabriel, deputy director of IFAW's Wildlife and Habitat Program, who is on a visit to India. She said that IFAW and the Wildlife Trust of India would distribute the television footage of the elephant capture worldwide in the next few days.

"Mahatma Gandhi once said, 'The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.' This government should be ashamed for sanctioning this act of deliberate cruelty to animals," Gabriel said.

The Wildlife Trust of India was asked to advise the state government about the elephant management program. The organization's report, which showed that the current capture action was unnecessary, was shelved.

"We were invited by the government to do a rapid assessment of the situation in January 2002. However, this report was ignored," said Vivek Menon, executive director of Wildlife Trust of India.

"This primitive and archaic elephant capture method should long be abandoned. There are humane methods available today that ensure the minimum amount of stress to animals while in human contact," Menon said. "Those that are responsible for this abuse of animals are in direct violation of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act. They should be brought to justice."

The 2000 IUCN Red List classifies Asian elephants as endangered due to habitat disruption and human encroachment. It is estimated that between 28,000 and 48,000 Asian elephants remain in the wild.