This was revealed by renowned elephant experts, who visited the city today as a part of their survey on captive elephants in the country.

Surendera Verma from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and Suparna Ganguly of the Compassion Unlimited Plus Action (CUPA), Banglore, held a meeting with the elephant owners and mahouts. The meeting was organised by CAPE-India (Care of Animals and Protection of Environment).

After carrying out a survey in the southern states of the country, where private elephants, temple elephants and government elephants are used in everyday work, the team held a meeting with the Ludhiana Forest Department.

Suparna Ganguly, who is involved in the survey for the last three years, said that the Centre is concerned about the condition of captive elephants. She said the captive elephants are kept in a small space without much exercise and also without variety of food which the wild elephants are used to. They suffer from malnutrition or are overweight and die a silent death. They are made to overwork in extreme weather, which often affects their health.

“The government is planning to microchip these gentle giants. Under this plan, a microchip will be inserted in some body part of the elephant which will bear their identity number,” she added.

These elephant experts told the participants about basic anatomy, management and treatment of elephants and answered to various queries posed to them.

Surender Verma said that men and elephants are very intelligent creature and there are many similarities. They have an emotional bonding with their group (herd) and mahout. He said that more than 61 mahouts have been killed by tuskers due to mismanagement. He said elephants have old female elephant as their head. He also said that a baby elephant remains with the herd till puberty, which is 12 to 14 yrs in human beings.

The male elephant leaves the herd or the females throw him out, to prevent inbreeding. The elephants have a very weak digestive system and only 30 per cent of food taken is utilised to produce energy.

So the elephants remain on run in search of food for about 18 hrs in a day. It needs variety of food about 200-250 kg per day for getting necessary nutrients. Similarly elephants have six molar teeth and one tooth is shed after every ten years. It means an elephant becomes toothless at the age of 60, so it becomes difficult for it to survive long as it can not find the adequate food, which can be swollowed as such without much chewing.

Its health declines and it dies. He said that girth of neck should be equal to shoulder height.

Dr Sandeep K Jain, Honourary Wildlife Warden and Chief Coordinator, CAPE-India, Patron M R Singhal, Animal Welfare Officer Sanjiv Kumar, Parmanand Shukla, Veterinary Officer Dr Bhajan Singh, Forest Range Officer Harbhaj Rai, Block Forest Officer Pritpal Singh and mahouts and owners were present in the meeting.

Dr Jain welcomed the experts and asked for assistance and guidance to microchip the elephants in state, so that they may be given separate identification and there is no more movement of elephants illegally.