Sun 21 June 2020:
KERALA, INDIA – JUNE 21: The COVID-19 pandemic has badly hit the traditional elephant festivals held across Kerala, the Southern Indian state, which has the highest number of captive elephants.
Most elephant keepers are going through difficult days to feed their animals without a steady income during coronavirus lockdown.
They are having difficulties in feeding and caring for the elephants, which are an unavoidable part of major festivals.
“Coronavirus lockdown came just 20 days after the start of the temple festival season. This has badly affected every field of human activity including elephant-keeping. It had a negative impact on the festival,” says one local elephant park owner, Puthenkulam Shaji.
“Even feeding the animal itself is a very expensive thing to do.”
In Parippally town of of Kollam district, Puthenkulam Shaji runs an elephant park, which would normally be very crowded during the festival season. Currently, he is facing difficulties to feed his 12 elephants.
Normally, on a single festival day an elephant would get around $200 – 1.000 according to their height, weight and their beauty.
A mahout, Biju Jayakumar, who rides, controls, and cares for working elephants, is also having difficulties to feed the three elephants he has.
“It is very very difficult nowadays. It is difficult to get food. We have to go far away to search for food and even then there is no assurance whether we would get enough food,” he says.
“During this Covid-19 days, there are only stories of losses that we suffer from. For something eatable, we have to pay a heavy price. There is also the expenditure for rice, jiggery, dates and others.”
The local Kerala government has recently announced Rs 400 (Indian Rupee) daily allowance for an elephant under a special aid package. However, the elephant-keepers are saying that they need at least Rs 4,000 per day to care for an elephant.
India is among the worst-hit countries from coronavirus.
The country has registered 15,413 more cases of the novel coronavirus in the past 24 hours as of Sunday — its highest single-day hike so far — with total confirmed cases now at 410,461, according to the Ministry of Health.
Data from the Health Ministry showed that 306 deaths had been confirmed, raising the overall toll to 13,254.
-Anadolu Agency
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