Shortage of wildlife doctors plagues Forest Department

Day-long workshop at city Zoo deliberates on desperate need to have more wildlife scientists

Mysuru: Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife) Sanjai Mohan has said that the State Forest Department has a shortage of qualified and knowledgeable veterinary scientists and wildlife doctors and efforts have to be made to increase their numbers.

He was speaking at a day-long workshop on ‘Emerging Diseases in Asian Elephants,’ organised by Sri Chamarajendra Zoological Gardens, popular as Mysuru Zoo yesterday. 

The workshop was organised in the wake of the recent outbreak of ‘Elephant Endotheliotropic Herpes Virus’ at Nandankanan Zoological Park in Odisha and at Sakkrebailu Elephant Camp in Shivamogga. The workshop’s objective was to create awareness on the disease among the stakeholders managing elephants in the wild and in captivity. 

“Though Karnataka has earned its name as the best place for managing captive elephants, we need qualified doctors to be on guard during emergencies. We need more expertise in managing the health of animals,” he said. The Endotheliotropic Herpes Virus spreads fast and has caused a series of elephant deaths even at Sakkrebailu camp. “There is a desperate need to take measures to counter such threats and the need of the hour is to develop expertise to prevent the spread of the virus,” he added. 

“Nowadays animal lovers are very active in social media and one small incident goes viral in seconds. As such, we have to be on our toes all the time and lapses will be highlighted. To face such a situation, we have to be well-equipped and need in-house wildlife scientists,” Sanjai said. Also, these days there are increased cases of man-animal conflict where expert doctors are needed to rescue animals that stray into human territory, he opined. 

Sanjai Mohan also said that the Department needs to ensure the safety of the people who are involved in rescue operations. “We will prepare a protocol to ensure comfort and safety of the people during animal rescue operations,” he said.

Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forests and Member-Secretary, Zoo Authority of Karnataka, B.P. Ravi spoke on human-animal conflict with reference to the recent tiger attacks on the fringes of Bandipur Tiger Reserve.  

 “We generally face a lot of difficulties in dealing with the huge crowd gathered during such operation and the pressure from the villagers to capture big cats and elephants mounts every time there is a man-animal conflict. We need to train forest watchers in tranquillising the wild animals. There is a need for in-house mechanism to rescue elephants or tigers. The Department needs to pool the talents for rescue and relief process,” he rued.  

There was a technical presentation on the subject by resource persons drawn from various research institutions. L. Ranganath, Research Director, Karnataka Veterinary, Animal & Fisheries Sciences University at Bidar, Dr. Arun Zachariah, Veterinarian from Kerala Forest Department conducted technical sessions on Endotheliotropic Herpes Virus. 

Deputy Conservator of Forests (DCF) Dr. K.C. Prashanth Kumar and Alexander were present.