The Wildlife Society of Orissa (WSO) has registered strong protest against the incarceration of a wild tusker in a wooden cage at the Kapilas Zoo and the Forest Department's move to turn it to a Kumki.

In its forth letter to the Chief Wildlife Warden, the WSO has demanded immediate steps by the authorities to immediately radio collar the elephant and release him as any further delay in releasing the elephant might endanger its life.

WSO secretary Biswajit Mohanty in the letter, whose copy is also forwarded to the IGF and Director (Project Elephant), Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, told that the experiments on turning wild tuskers to Kumkis have always proved to be disastrous and demanded the release of the captured Talcher tusker forthwith.

"The other tusker captured from Jajpur district in January that was kept in Chandaka WLS died on March 9 due to injuries caused by chains . We anticipate a similar tragic fate for this animal unless it is released in a non conflict zone like Kalahandi or Simlipal  after radio collaring," Mohanty told.

He further said, "The CWLW set up a Committee of Experts which included two retired Chief Wildlife Wardens  SK Pattnaik and BK Pattnaik who gave an opinion that the tusker should not be released. Their views were accepted though there is a serious conflict of interest as both worked in Odisha Wildlife Wing earlier. No independent wildlife activist or expert was part of the committee and hence the advice should be ignored as it is obviously biased in favour of the department plans."

"Training elephants for Kumkis entails enormous cruelty by denying food and forcing it to obey commands.  They have no right to imprison a free living tusker. We demand the immediate release of the young tusker so that the wild gene pool is healthy," he said.