Context – Maa Baglamukhi temple atop a four-story residential apartment in south Delhi’s Greater Kailash neighborhood could soon be the owner of an elephant that it proposes to get from Assam.
What are the issues involved?
- The area earmarked for the Elephant is a residential area, which might be detrimental to both the animals and the humans in the area.
- The area faces chronic water shortages, which goes against the basic needs of such giant animals.
- This also goes against the Delhi High Court order 2018, which mandated the rescue of all the captive elephants in Delhi.
What are the rules around the transfer and transport of elephants?
According to the provisions of the Wildlife Protection Act, elephants are a Schedule 1 species and, therefore, cannot be captured or traded, whether wild or captive.
- Section 12 of the Act allows Schedule I animals to be translocated for ‘special purposes’ such as education and scientific research. Captive elephants, because of their historical role in forest management, timber transport, presence in estates of erstwhile royal families and in temple precincts for religious purposes, can be owned and, therefore, come under a special category.
- Section 40 (2) of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 prohibits the acquisition, possession and transfer of a captive elephant without the written permission of the Chief Wildlife Warden of the State.
- In 2021, the Environment Ministry introduced an amendment that allowed the transfer of elephants for ‘religious or any other purposes’.
- According to the latest rules, new relaxations are provided under which captive elephants can change owners or be transferred. These include, for instance, situations when an owner is no longer in a position to maintain the elephant or when a state’s Chief Wildlife Warden “deems it fit and proper” to transfer the elephant in circumstances which call for better upkeep of the elephant.