Dhurbe is no longer on the rampage and the tusker terror has subsided. Unfortunately, this has put authorities back to slumber and they are no longer in a haste to form a mechanism to deal with similar cases in future. [break]
“Dhurbe is no longer on the rampage. We assume he must have died as he was injured,” said Megh Bahadur Pandey, director general at the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation (DNPWC). “We have no immediate plans to train our staffers. Resources or mechanism needed to tame an animal like Dhurbe is important but it takes time,” he said.
A month ago, terming the decision to kill Dhurbe very sad and unfortunate yet inevitable, Pandey had told Republica that the case had highly alarmed the authorities and that they had started working toward forming a mechanism to deal with cases like Dhrube, so that wild animals do not have to get killed.
“Our staffers who are visiting India to attend a function are going to discuss the issue there. We are planning to send our staffers elsewhere as well so that they acquire necessary skills to tame animals on the rampage,” he had said, adding that it was important to ensure safety of all endangered animals.
According to wildlife law expert Dr Ravi Sharma Aryal, it is in fact not only sad but also illegal to kill Dhurbe. “As Nepal is signatory and party to CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild fauna and Flora), it has to protect all the endangered species,” said Aryal. “When animals are deprived of what they need, they are bound to behave the way Dhrube did. Killing them is not a fair solution,” he said.
The administration had carried out operation Dhurbe campaign in mid December after the tusker killed 17 people in and around Chitwan National Park in three months. Dhurbe was believed to have gone mad after being deprived of opportunities to mate with female elephants and excessive human interference and torture.
Formally the operation is still on, however, the search team reckons that Dhurbe has either died or has sneaked into the Indian jungles through Parsa border.
“Formally, the hunt for Dhurbe is still on. However, the search in not that intense as we now have two guesses about the animal,” said coordinator of the search team Dr Maheshwor Dhakal. “Either he is dead or he might have entered Indian jungles via Parsa,” added Aryal.
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