To prevent illegal sale and for easy identification

Mysore :

Hereafter identifying captive elephants in the State will be very easy as microchips are being implanted in them to help their identification and prevent illegal transportation of such elephants.

There are 42 elephants maintained by private players like Mysore Palace which has six (Chanchala, Ruby, Neeta, Preethi, Jamuna and Rajeshwari) Suttur Mutt which has two (Champa and Drona) and Nanjangud Srikanteshwara Temple has one (Gauri).

Elsewhere in the State, there are 188 elephants including 125 in Mysuru Division housed in elephant camps like Dubare,Thithimathi, Balle, Veeranahosahalli, Sakrebailu, Bandipura, K.Gudi and 26 in Mysuru and Bengaluru Zoos.

For the first time in the State, nine captive elephants coming under the jurisdiction of Mysuru Territorial Range got the chips implanted on Wednesday in the inner portion of the left inner lobe of their ears by Dr. Nagaraj, under the supervision of DCP Dr. V. Karikalan.

The microchip displays a 10-digit number read on a chip reader and the unique identification number will be recorded in the registry maintained by the Forest Department and linked to its server. Right now, the elephants are identified only through mahouts which are not fool proof as it widens the scope for illegal transportation.

It is said that 9 of the 10 chips, produced by an Indore (Madhya Pradesh) based company at Rs. 2000 per chip has been given to the Mysuru Zoo to be implanted to the main captive elephants there.

“Microchips will become mandatory for seeking licence to maintain captive elephants. The microchip implantation will be permanent and the licence should be renewed once in five years,” said DCF Dr. Karikalan.

source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> General News / Friday – June 26th, 2015