Press Release: March 20, 1999

More Information About IPAN Animal Refuge Veterinary Services Education Animal Conditions Project Reports "Loki" the Indian Elephant and related issues How you can help

Update on “Loki” the Indian Elephant

This poor creature has suffered enough. What purpose will be served keeping him in chains as long as he lives? He has become a victim of people in authority doing nothing because, in order to save face, others responsible for his condition insist nothing needs to be done. He is also a victim of administrative buck-passing and of the gridlock of bureaus and egos that resent outside (foreign) “interference” and ignore the expressed concerns of local citizens. There is no reason, except the most churlish and childish, for the Tamil Nadu State Forest Department and Central Government not to work collaboratively with all concerned to give Loki sanctuary.

“The last thing we need is more media coverage that focuses on hearing both “sides” of the issue, what IPAN says versus what the Forest Department and other officials say,” says Deanna Krantz, Director of India Project for Animals and Nature (IPAN), a division of New York-based Global Communications for Conservation, Inc.. “When an animal is suffering there are no sides.”

The authorities are quick to point out that Loki is a crop-raider and a “rogue” elephant, having allegedly killed a number of people.* Does this justify treating him like a criminal? The war between rural people and wild elephants continues as elephants are constantly harassed, shot at, and electrocuted. Their habitat is over-exploited by people and livestock, and fragmented by rich landowners, vital corridors being blocked off by guest lodges and plantations.

“Elephants thrived for millions of years before we humans appeared on earth,” says IPAN Consultant Dr. Michael W. Fox. “They evolved a high degree of empathy and intelligence, and respected other herd’s ranges and territories. They must possess, therefore, a rudimentary, and more probably, a well developed sense of place, property, and justice. A deep sense of injustice, and not pure hunger, may therefore explain why starving elephants attack villages and trample fences that encroach on their ancestral lands.”

* Reports range from 3 – 36 people, 8 being the number given by Minister Maneka Gandhi to Michael Tobias (via personal communication), and “at least a dozen” by Dr. Raman Sukumar of the Indian Institute of Science.