The Hindu, India
April 8, 2005

JUMBO GIFT GETS STUCK AMID PROTESTS

Our Staff Reporter

Little Veda’, India’s courtesy gift’ to Armenia’s Yerevan Zoo, has
managed to create more than a rumble in the corridors of power in the
Capital in the wake of appeals from across the globe asking the
Indian government to prevent the nine-year-old pachyderm from
crossing the seven seas’.

School children have been rallying for the elephant, e-mailing from
the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Argentina, America, Spain and
Germany. The female baby elephant from the Bannerghatta National
Park, Bangalore, was promised as a mate to the lonely male elephant
in Armenia way back in 1999 by the then Prime Minister, Atal Bihari
Vajpayee. The request was put forward by the then visiting Armenian
president.

However, in December 2004 when the Armenian government asked the
pachyderm to be transported in the middle of sub-zero temperatures
there, an Indian non-government organisation saw red and the process
was delayed by four months, resulting in Veda still being in India.

“Recent surveys show that Yerevan Zoo lacks proper housing space
needed to support an elephant. Worst of all, the sub-zero freezing
conditions prevalent for 4-6 months there will not suit the animal.
During these cold bitter months, the elephants will have no
opportunity to walk or exercise. Also, Armenia’s natural vegetation
does not have natural grass, leaves, sugarcane, jaggery and other
nutritional requirements of elephants which are available in tropical
countries,” said the vice-president of Compassion Unlimited Plus
Action, Bangalore, Suparna Bakshi Ganguly, the NGO that first opposed
the transfer of the animal.

Meanwhile, a final decision is now pending with the Prime Minister’s
Office. Also, the former Union Minister, Maneka Gandhi, has joined
the children efforts to keep the pachyderm at home. In a letter to
the Prime Minister early this month, she said: “Yerevan Zoo’s track
record has been poor with elephants. They have no elephants because
each time they get them, they die. One elephant was shot dead when it
escaped from its enclosure in early 1970s. One elephant slipped on
the ice and died in early 1990s. This elephant was suffering from
malnutrition and hypothermia. The third elephant, currently housed
there has been acquired from Russia in 1999 and has been housed in
solitary confinement for so many years, Yerevan Zoo has no
affiliations with any European zoo associations or federations and is
therefore not required to follow any rules and regulations.”