Robotic elephants at temples, a solution to cruelty in opposition to animals?

It flaps its ears and squirts water from a waving trunk, however this elephant is a life-size mechanical duplicate rolled out to interchange the endangered animals in India’s Hindu temples.

Made from fibreglass and rubber, and trundling on a wheeled metallic body robust sufficient to carry a rider, the mannequin is one in all dozens that animal rights campaigners are trumpeting as an alternative choice to retaining elephants in captivity in India.

Elephants are used throughout many Hindu temple ceremonies, paraded via packed crowds with flashing lights, thumping drums and ear-splitting music.

Lethal assaults by panicked pachyderms are frequent.

“It’s a wild animal, it likes to stay in jungles,” mentioned C.G. Prakash, 68, a former official on the standard Chakkamparambu Bhagavathy temple in India’s southern Kerala state.

“We’re capturing it and torturing it. It’s completely unethical”.

Prakash was instrumental in bringing the robotic elephant to the temple.

It was donated by the Voice for Asian Elephants Society, which mentioned it will support “cruelty-free temple traditions”.

‘Stay with their households’

Campaigners from the Folks for the Moral Remedy of Animals (PETA) India say the greater than 2,700 captive elephants within the nation usually face “extreme bodily and psychological stress”.

Regardless of being herd animals, they’re usually saved alone and chained up for a lot of the day.

PETA has funded greater than a dozen fashions since 2023, donated on the situation that temples transfer their elephants to accepted sanctuaries.

“Mechanical elephants assist retain age-old traditions in a contemporary means,” mentioned PETA’s Khushboo Gupta.

“They assist guarantee actual elephants can stay with their households of their pure jungle habitats”.

Like the true factor, fashions are draped with a golden headdress and bedecked with flower garlands.

Modelmakers say a luxurious model – full with electrical motors powering a nodding head, rolling eyes and a lifelike swishing tail – can price greater than $5,500.

Skilled mannequin maker Prasanth Prakasan, 42, mentioned he and three associates started making elephant fashions as an artwork challenge, however are happy they’re now serving to shield actual animals.

“What we’re doing is saving elephants, and we’re completely satisfied about it,” he mentioned.

The crew has made practically 50 such elephants – with a manufacturing line on the workshop constructing a number of extra.

For these eager on an elephant at their marriage ceremony, fashions may be rented with out the cumbersome permits required for a pricey actual one, he identified.

‘Exploited’

Accidents involving spooked elephants trampling crowds are frequent and a few temples switching to fashions cite the security of their worshippers.

In February alone, PETA recorded incidents in Kerala involving 9 captive elephants dropping management, with 5 folks killed.

In a single, an elephant at a pageant was spooked by fireworks, jabbed its companion with a tusk and triggered a stampede that killed three folks and injured dozens.

“Those that care for them, many don’t comply with the principles”, mentioned V.Ok. Venkitachalam, 60, from the Heritage Animal Job Power rights group.

Animal welfare can also be gaining rising consideration.

In November, Kerala’s Excessive Courtroom issued pointers for the higher therapy of captive elephants.

“Their use is commonly sought to be justified on the touchstone of custom and non secular observe,” the courtroom wrote.

However “animals are being commercially exploited with none care or concern for his or her well-being”, it mentioned.

The rules have been later stayed by the Supreme Courtroom saying pointers have been impractical.

‘Non-violence’

There are fewer than 50,000 Asian elephants within the wild, in response to the World Wildlife Fund, the bulk in India, with others in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia.

The species is endangered, in response to the Worldwide Union for Conservation of Nature.

As elephant habitats shrink, battle between people and wild elephants has grown – 629 folks have been killed by elephants throughout India in 2023-2024, in response to parliamentary figures.

Over the identical interval, 121 elephants have been killed – the overwhelming majority by highly effective electrical fences, in addition to by poaching, poisoning, and being hit by trains.

For animal rights activists, the mannequin elephants are a secure resolution that matches with spiritual ideas.

“This initiative honours ahimsa, or non-violence, a tenet of Hinduism”, PETA’s Gupta instructed AFP.

Amongst some worshippers, the placid fashions are a aid.

“When it’s a stay elephant, there’s a concern amongst us. What if it runs amok?” 58-year-old trainer Jayasree Sivaraman Narayaneeya mentioned.

“Because it’s a robotic elephant, we really feel a lot safer.”