New Delhi: The first-ever captive elephants' census in the country has enumerated 2,454 jumbos, out of which, more than two-thirds are in private custody.
The census, undertaken on the orders of the Supreme Court, computed 2,454 captive elephants in 28 states and Union Territories.
Arunachal Pradesh, Telangana, Sikkim, Mizoram, Himachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Jammu and Kashmir and the Union Territory of Daman and Diu are still to submit their reports in terms of the order by the Supreme Court.
Out of the captive elephants, 1,809 are in private custody. Private custody would include elephants owned by individuals, circuses and temples. The other class of captive elephants are with the government's forest department and in zoo or rehabilitation centres.
The report submitted by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change in the Supreme Court demonstrated that individuals own 1,687 of 1,809 captive elephants.
Assam has the highest number of captive elephants — 905, out of which 752 are in private custody. Kerala has 518 captive elephants, followed by Karnataka and Tamil Nadu with 184 and 138 elephants, respectively.
Out of 518 elephants in Kerala, 479 are kept by individuals and the remaining 39 are with the state forest department.
While Tamil Nadu has the highest number of elephants, 39, in temples, followed by Karnataka, which has 28 captive elephants in temples, Gujarat has the highest number of elephants in circuses — 12.
As many as 335 elephants in Assam are in private custody without any ownership certificate whereas this number is 134 in Kerala.
The census had to be carried out by the states to ascertain the number of captive elephants pursuant to various directives by the Supreme Court, which has been dealing with a PIL in this regard.
In November last, a bench headed by Justice AK Sikri had set a deadline of December 31 for completion of the survey.
"The Chief Wild Life Warden of each State must ascertain and identify elephants in captivity in that particular State and whether the owners of these elephants have an ownership certificate," stated the order, following which the census took place and records were furnished.
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