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Measures for the control of elephants - Keddah |
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Down to the Bagti to Mr. Errol Gray's camp. His keddah has done fairly well so far and he has got 37 elephants out of it. One, a gunda, had to be shot, a calf got killed in the crush in the keddah, and an old female was released. He hopes still to get the rest of the herd which includes a fine tusker (which he does not want as he will have to shoot it if it comes in). He mentioned in conversation that he thought the practice of Mela Shikar in which the Shikaris are not limited in numbers, which he says is carried on in most of Assam, is much worse for the elephants from the preservation of the species point of view than the keddah system, as it catches the young stock leaving the old animals which do not breed and also causes the destruction of a large number of calves both born and abandoned by their mothers under pursuit, and unborn and dropped prematurely by pursued females. When there is no limit to the number of shikaris the herds get no rest at all, he says, and the ultimate result he thinks worse for the elephants than rounding up and driving a herd or part of one into the keddah. |
