Ten elephants, deployed at the Amber Fort here to entertain tourists and give them royal rides, have been relieved of their onerous duty after they were found suffering with tuberculosis.
The ten pachyderms, forming a group of 100 others, were found suffering from the energy sapping, infectious disease during their medical examination by the Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI) between December 2017 and March 2018 at Hathi Gaon, following which they were withdrawn from the active duty.
A team by AWBI conducted examination of 103 elephants and 10 of them were found with the symptoms of TB, Jaipur Zoo's Deputy Forest Conservator Sudarshan Sharma disclosed it in a letter to the Amber fort superintendent two days back.
In his letter dated June 19 today at the Fort, Sharma also asked the fort authorities to stop using the elephants.
Amber fort Superintendent Pankaj Dharendra said the use of the sick elephants has been stopped forthwith.
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The Amber fort is protected monument falling under the Department of Archeology.
After receiving the letter from the forest department on June 19, we have stopped the use of those ten elephants, he said.
There are now nearly 90 elephants which are being used for giving ride to the tourist at the sprawling historic fort, he added.
Animal lovers and activists welcomed the move, but sought provision of better living conditions for the quarantined tuskers.
"We welcome the news of the infected elephants being quarantined and not being used to give rides. Their segregation alone, however, is not enough," said Managing Director N G Jayasimha of Humane Society International, India (HSI, India) in a statement.
He added that the affected elephants need to be given better living conditions so that they are cured and the contagious disease does not spread to other elephants.
The animal rights activists had earlier asked the Union Health Ministry on June 18 to quarantine the elephants infected with tuberculosis in Jaipur's Amer Fort and screen all the untested animals, which are "forced" to give rides to tourists, as the disease can spread from animals to human beings as well.
The animal lovers had raised the demand after the AWBI report was released.
HSI India had also urged the Rajasthan director general of police and Jaipur district magistrate to initiate prosecution against custodians of the infected elephants for posing a threat to the lives of other elephants, besides the human beings who come in their contact - the mahouts, handlers and tourists.
"We urge the Forest Department to move the elephants from Haathi Gaon, where they currently reside, to a lifelong care and treatment facility and be rehabilitated in a Central Zoo Authority (CZA)-recognised rehabilitation centre. We also urge the police to prosecute the owners for wilfully violating the law," Jayasimha said.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), India said its representatives recently held meetings with high-ranking officers of the Rajasthan government, including the chief secretary and the additional chief secretaries of the Forest and Environment, Tourism, Art and Culture departments and had apprised them ofthe AWBI's findings of health conditions of the captive elephants.
AWBI is a statutory body under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.
In response,the Department of Archaeology and a museum, which is responsible for regulating elephant rides at Amber Fort, quarantined and removed the infected elephant from public contact immediately, a release from PETA India said.
"Sick, injured, and illegally held captive elephants were being forced to give rides to tourists in Jaipur, and we are grateful to the WCCB for recognising that the illegal custody and use of captive elephants and trade of their tusks are serious wildlife crimes, punishable under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972," PETA India Associate Director of Policy Nikunj Sharma said in the release.
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