Global Veterinary Summit

Biography

Biography: Nagarajan Baskaran

Abstract

Asian elephants despite having a long history of captivity globally, suffering with wide range of welfare problems. This study evaluates the diseases prevalence, health condition and veterinary care among 144 Asian elephants managed in three captive systems-Hindu temple, private and forest department-in Tamil Nadu, India. Among the three systems, a higher occurrence of foot rot, stereotypes and arthritis was found among the elephants in temple and private systems and least or absent in the forest department system. On the other hand, eye problems and parasitic prevalence were more among forest department elephants than those in temple and private systems. The growth curve obtained from the shoulder height records of various age class showed that the private elephants attained a lower asymptotic shoulder height (241 cm) compared to those in forest department (243 cm) and temple systems (251 cm). Similarly, the growth curve obtained based on body weight records showed that the temple elephants’ asymptotic body weight (3890 kg) was far higher than private (3199 kg) and forest department elephants (3104 kg). The relatively higher height and weight of temple elephants as compared to those in the forest department and private systems attributed to lesser work load of temple elephants. Assessment on health condition revealed that the proportion of elephants with poor health condition was highest in the private facility (24%) followed by temples (16%) and lowest in the forest department (6%). Data on veterinary care revealed that all elephants in the forest department system received regular veterinary care while only 75% of elephants in temple and 25% of elephants in private systems had periodic medical checkup.