Bengaluru: “He has never harmed anyone.” That’s a sentiment shared by many in Karnataka’s Hassan district, when they talk about ‘Thanneer Komban’, a wild elephant that frequently crossed their paths. On February 3, however, Thanneer died after a re-capture operation by the Kerala Forest Department in Wayanad’s Mananthavady town.

A week later, another elephant was in the news, again near Mananthavady. In the interactions that resulted between people and the Belur Makhna (makhnas are tuskless male elephants), a local died on February 10.

“Belur Makhna killed a man in Kerala,” most headlines screamed the next day. Over 225 forest staff across both states were tracking this male for two weeks. Makhna is back in Karnataka, unaware of his fate: a walk into Wayanad, and he is at the mercy of a sharpshooter. On the Karnataka side of the border, he could be captured again.

Both these elephants have one thing in common: they are both radio-collared translocated males from Karnataka, captured in Hassan and released in Bandipur. In the week following the incidents, the Kerala High Court called upon the governments of Kerala, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu to coordinate efforts in addressing the escalating problem of human-wildlife interactions, resulting in the formation of an inter-state committee.

Where to release?

There has been opposition from other states against Karnataka releasing its “problem” elephants at the border areas. In this ongoing narrative, now highly political – some political parties, including the union minister, Bhupender Yadav – have voiced against the Karnataka government’s decision to pay 15 lakhs in compensation to the deceased’s family in Wayanad. However, it is essential to note here that this was not a regular elephant but a radio-collared, translocated one. Also, the Kerala forest department points towards the Karnataka forest department’s delay in relaying information on the elephant movements - data that could have helped avoid human death. Unfortunately, one of the key causes of this escalating issue, the adoption and impact of the translocation of elephants as a mitigation measure, is still not being addressed. Many scientists state translocation is a political phenomenon rather than an ecological one. “For several species, translocation is counter-productive, either for people or for the species,” confirms Sayan Banerjee, a doctoral scholar looking at human-elephant interactions in Assam.

One of the highly-cited studies on the viability of translocating Asian elephants as a mitigation measure proves how it “translocates” the problem elsewhere. In Karnataka, one of the very few states in India using this method extensively, that is literally what is unfolding on the ground.

In February, Thanneer – an elephant translocated from Hassan to Bandipur Tiger Reserve in January this year after locals (as per some reports) raised concerns of the animal’s crop-raiding behavior – ventured into neighboring Wayanad district in Kerala within a few weeks of his release. After protests by locals, the Kerala forest department decided to recapture the elephant. The operation lasted for over 17 hours. Thanneer died in an elephant camp in Bandipur, where he was brought after the capture. Some claim the death resulted from shock and trauma; others speak of injuries.

Within a week, yet another radio-collared translocated elephant – the Belur Makhna – relocated from Hassan to Bandipur, also moved into Kerala. In the interactions that followed, a man died. For over ten days, close to 200 staff of the Kerala forest department and an 18-22-member team from Karnataka were looking for the Belur Makhna to recapture him. The Kerala forest department also roped in sharpshooter Nawab Shafath Ali Khan for the operation. As of February 24, Belur Makhna is said to have reentered Karnataka. It’s a wait-and-watch situation.

This is not the first time the negative impacts of translocating elephants have transpired as a “border issue”. Arikomban from Kerala, for example, in a day-long effort, was captured by over 150 forest staff and four kumkis (captive elephants that are trained to capture wild ones). The department moved him to Periyar Tiger Reserve and recaptured again after he moved into Tamil Nadu. Similarly, elephant PM2 from Tamil Nadu, post-translocation, was recaptured after it was found in Kerala.

Studies globally have shown how a scientifically carried out translocation – which is unobtrusive to a large extent – still leads to elevated physiological stress response for up to 30 days after the release of the animal. Translocation may also generate various stressors at any stage of their execution, which have additive or cumulative effects on animals. So, it’s not surprising that these translocated animals are already stressed. Also, as most studies have proved over the years, most translocated elephants move widely to return to their home range or try to establish home ranges in new areas. Interactions have always cropped up in these areas, as seen in the above-mentioned cases.

Is translocation worth the effort?

During most of these translocation efforts, authorities declare curfews and close down schools and colleges for a day or two. For many local communities in the areas of capture and release, the stress is unbounded.

When one of the elephants from Hassan was radio-collared and translocated to Bandipur, a scientist who was part of the operation, on anonymity, explained: “Most of these translocated elephants make attempts to go back to their home range. We have also found interactions in areas of release. Locals now believe most of the radio-collared elephants to be those translocated from other areas. Hence, they protest.”

An IUCN report on guidelines for the translocation of African elephants states that communities around the release site should be consulted and kept informed for the long-term security of the translocated elephant. None of the forest departments in South India seek permission from locals in the release area before translocation. In Tamil Nadu last year, an elephant called Makhna was translocated for the second time and spent an agonising 24 hours on a truck traveling 200 km: because locals in two separate areas protested against Makhna’s release near their villages.

In almost all cases of translocation of elephants in these states, the cost of operation runs high.

“Captures are expensive. The amount for tranquillisation and the transport of kumkis alone costs lakhs,” a forest official from Kodagu stated.

For example, Karnataka spends Rs 22 lakh to radio-collar an elephant. According to some news reports, Kerala spent Rs 15.85 lakh to translocate Arikomban and Rs 17.32 lakh in capturing and relocating PT7 to an elephant camp. Tamil Nadu, when rehoming some of the captured elephants, at times, spends Rs 10 lakh on a single kraal (an enclosure made to constrict and tame a wild elephant into submission). Authorities often spend more than Rs 2-3 lakh on cage construction to transport the animal. Then comes the cost of transporting kumkis – sometimes, up to eight are used, like in Karnataka’s Operation Jumbo which aims to capture elephants and fix radio collars in Hassan district. Costs covering transport, earthmovers (numbers exceeding 100 and above at times), staff, their food and stay for all the days spent searching and capturing an elephant – are additional. The cost of the upkeep of elephants captured for captivity is over 11 lakhs for one individual for a year, according to an RTI report. And all these go into a single capture and translocation operation.

No science behind identification

While discussing plans for Operation Jumbo, a senior forest department official said in a press note, “We would start our operations in Belur taluk where more than 50 wild elephants had come. These wild jumbos, which came around two months ago into the Taluk area, have to be driven away to the elephant habitat.”

This knee-jerk reaction to interactions and an unscientific method of identifying elephants for translocation has disrupted the lives of several elephants not responsible for interactions. At the same time, it has not addressed conflicts with humans on the ground. Locals have also expressed anger at such mishaps in the past. As in the case of elephant Bhaira in Karnataka’s Chikkamagaluru, whose capture led to further protests by locals claiming the forest department picked the wrong elephant.

In other cases, people have mourned such unscientific decisions, like in the recent case with elephant Thanneer, where several expressed their grievances on social media. Vinod Krishnan, who has worked in Hassan for a decade handling human-elephant interactions and has observed Thaneer since 2018, says: “Thaneer would simply walk away at the sight of any human being around. He kept to himself and did not harm anyone.”

In a public post, Krishnan recounted Thaneer’s story as an individual, as well as its behavior and life: who, in public memory, had passed on, being remembered as just another featureless “rogue” elephant.

In 2017, I interacted with locals near Karnataka’s Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary after elephants raided over 55 farms in a single day. They demanded barricades, the timely presence of the forest department during the crisis, and compensation. No one spoke of capture. However, that has changed now. The use of translocation as mitigation has doubled since 2014 after authorities captured/ translocated 22 wild elephants from Hassan based on the recommendations of scientists and members of the then Karnataka Elephant Task Force. Unfortunately, this also triggered dependence and a pattern in locals, who have since been requesting capture as the only solution to interactions across Karnataka today.

Despite being evidenced as a mitigation measure, often leading to more interactions, this solution has been used in reckless frequency in the past two years, which is expensive, highly stress-inducing and risky to humans and elephants but has yielded (mostly) a cycle of misfortunes: conflict- capture - translocation-conflict - conflict-recapture. Repeat.

Interestingly, resorting to intrusive solutions like translocation is rarely adopted by states that witness more interactions than Karnataka, such as Assam and West Bengal. Banerjee says that investing in short term, band-aid, tech-only solutions (such as radio collaring and translocations) for long-persisting issues like human-wildlife interactions doesn’t always help. Addressing the local driving factors – political, social, and cultural – is essential.

“One needs to go a bit deeper to understand the roots through which these narratives were set and put into motion. We are solution-centric, trying to find new techs to solve an apparent unsolvable problem. The assumption of wildlife conflict management is that we cannot treat socio-political causes and find newer solutions (or tech) to pacify the situation. Both elephants and people who live around these elephants are the losers.”

Gana Kedlaya is an environment reporter based in Bengaluru.

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