Recently, two adult elephants off the Sri lanka coast were trapped in the ocean water which were rescued by the Naval Force of the country. This is a rare incident and probably is seen for the first time in the history of field biology and field ecology.
There is much similarity between the Indian elephant and the Sri lankan elephant. But there are some variations among Indian elephants and the African ones. The Indian elephant rarely exceeds 3.20 metre at the shoulder but the average height of an adult male is 2.75 metre.
The female is 30 cm lower. The Indian elephant is smaller than the African elephant. The latter has enormous ears. Again, it has three nails on each hind foot, but the Indian elephant has four nails on each hind foot. The African elephant has two equal size “lips” at the end of the trunk, whereas the Indian elephant has only one “lip” at the end of the trunk. The average weight of elephant is 7 tonnes.
The males have generally the trunks. The female are trunk-less, but scarcely a few inches trunks are seen in case of females. In each case the contour of the tusk varies. It may be wide spread or curved and even straight. The tusk-less male elephants are known as Makhanas.
Every Makhanas are generically very large in build and having well developed trunk. The Makhanas are generally known as third gender; and they are not permitted in the herd. The elephants are very peaceful animals and prefer to live with family. In a herd, 10 to 100 numbers of elephants are seen.
In India, the elephants are found in Western Ghats and Eastern Ghats, which covers Mysore, Odisha, Bihar and Chhattisgarh. This animal is also noticed in Himalayan areas in UP, West Bengal and Assam. Besides, the Western Ghats, Eastern Ghats and Himalayan tracks, the mammal is also noticed in Sri lanka, Burma, Siam, Cochin, China (Vietnam), Borneo and Sumatra.
Bamboo is the most favoured species of the quadruped. It can adapt with various climatic positions and environmental- ecological situations. In Burma, the elephants roam over up to 10,000ft altitude in bamboo forests. In Sikkim, the animal goes up to 12,00ft altitude for food and shelter above the sea-level.
The quadruped always prefers to stay within dense dry deciduous forests, where the forest canopy is massive to avoid summer heat. In rainy season, the animal likes to stay with family, generally in open forests and avoids the flies and insects. During winter and rains, the elephants commonly come down to cultivated fields to devour crops raised by the peasants.
One herd consisting of one family does not prefer to mix with other families. The master of the herd, generally the big tusker, always keeps some distance from its herd, while feeding itself. When the bull becomes older and reaches at a certain age, it separates out itself from the herd and passes life solitarily; but when the mating period comes, the segregated male comes to the herd to fulfill its mating urge.
If we analyse the cases of elephants of Sri lanka, which were drowned in the ocean water in the Sri lanka Bay, it will be seen that this is the first and unprecedented occurrence in the field biology of elephant races of the globe. The elephant is a heavy bodied animal, which is always afraid of coming to sea-shore where the reverine silt-bed and silt deposits are noticed in case of river estuaries, as it fears to be trapped easily in the deep silt-deposits. Similarly, it also fears to come and approach the quick sands or the loose sands and also the streamed and tide waters of the ocean. So, the heavy bodied animals like elephants are never seen in the coastal forests like tidal forests of mangroves.
Those two Sri lankan elephants, trapped in the tidal water of Sri lankan Bay, must be mate elephants and must be segregated from the own family herd and be in search of water. They might have accidently come to the sea-shore and started playing in the ocean water and trapped. The elephant itself is almost a swamp animal and is very fond of water and the herds always get pleasure to play together in the water body to normalize their body temperatures. This is a stray and rare case.
A full grown elephants can eat three to four quintals of green fodders per day. The Indian elephants can easily be tamed, but the African elephants cannot.
Now crores of rupees are spent for development of wild life habitats and rehabilitation of degraded forests, but there is no improvement of wild life habitats; rather the habitats of wild creatures are degrading very fast. For example, every day there is conflict between the man and the wild creatures like tiger, leopard, elephant, wolf, hyena, bear, wild boar, monkey and other such creatures and birds.
It is happening for loss of habitats. The rehabilitation of degraded forests implies the restoration and development of ecological systems of a specified bio-sphere in a given climatic zone. The loss of habitat means the loss of links in a food chain. Conservation of nature is the sole aim of rehabilitation of degraded forests and wild life management.
(The writer is a former senior forest officer and an environmentalist. Tel no 9937460649)