Elephants in BetlaNational Park are hardly any concerned with the crisis of water shortage there.
Sources said about half a dozen elephants are in National Park Betla and these jumbos are taking bath with the same water which the officials are filling the troughs in the park for wildlife. Betla ranger Nathuni Singh said,"These elephants are using the same water which we are transporting to the troughs in the park. If any elephant is taking bath from the water of the trough no other wildlife except he monkeys and the langurs com near."
The presence of elephants in Betla National Park in this hot summer has come as a pleasant surprise to he tiger reserve officials. The summer resort of the elephants is Bareysarn.
Elephants enjoy water in summer and have a canny sense of locating water beneath the earth. D S Srivastava member state wild life board told the Pioneer that elephants presence in the park is a good sign. He said the elephants will move out once convinced there is no water left for them in the PTR as these wild life has a great sense for water availability. However Srivastava said ' I am told by a few trackers of the PTR that elephants have begun to eat wheat too. This is a strange dietary habit now of the elephants. Elephants dependency on food grains is dangerous for villagers.'
Srivastava wants more and more bamboo cultivation in the national park Betla as bamboo is the staple diet of the elephants.
He said bamboo be grown where lantenae ( a kind of shrub) is weeded out as in its pit the stump of the bamboo can be put in with top soil over it.
Srivastava reminded that before this tiger reserve was notified bamboos here were shipped to India's top paper mill. Now the bamboos are getting themselves scarce now. He wanted its regeneration for elephants.