Zubair Qureshi
International organization for welfare of animals Four Paw team led by Director of the Project Development Dr Amir Khalil is busy with Kaavan the only Asian elephant in the country, trying to improve his living conditions and make him responsive to human contact.
Since Aug 22 when the team arrived in Islamabad to evaluate the animal’s health and fitness for a possible relocation, Dr Amir Khalil has been doing two sessions daily with the animal, one in the morning and the other in the evening so that he could develop a daily routine and be nice to others.
While talking to Pakistan Observer, Amir Khalil said Kaavan was very intelligent and adorable elephant only 5,500 kg or so and he has been showing tremendous signs of recovery from aggression and mental disorder.
The team is in the town after the plight of the inmates of the Islamabad zoo was highlighted in the international media and high court of Islamabad too ordered relocation of all the animals from the zoo.
The Four Paws team is now assessing Kaavan’s health and mental and physical fitness for a possible relocation to Cambodia’s elephants sanctuary.
If everything goes well and above all if the Pakistan government makes a decision, Kaavan could be relocated to his new home before the end of November this year, said Amir Khalil.
However, for that a daily plan needs to be implemented so that Kaavan could be familiarized to a huge cage in which he could be possibly transported to a jumbo jet, Antonov A-225 aircraft, said he.
To a question, how he was able to get so close to the animal, Amir said “perhaps he liked to hear me sing or liked to touch my skin and sniff me.”
I don’t know but it is pure luck and a couple of melodies that seem to be working on the pachyderm, said he in a light mood.
However, he was right in saying so as Kaavan seemed to relax his muscles when he played Gipsy Kings’ ‘Amor Mio’ or Frank Sinatra’s ‘My Way.’
Seeing Dr Amir signing to the elephant was something worthy of sight. In the beginning, unaccustomed to close human contact, the elephant grew a little agitated, however later it calmed down as Amir played classical melodies to him and spoke to him and caressed him gently.
Earlier the ‘killer’ elephant (as he was named after he crushed a zoo worker to death in 1992) kept standing in a corner of his shed, most of the time moving his huge trunk from right to left and the zoo employees provided him with the food and water from a distance.
Daily, Dr Amir Khalil does two sessions with the animal, first in the morning from 9.00 a.m. to 12 and secondly, from 4.30 p.m. to 6.30 p.m and in his daily schedule, there are no off days like Saturdays or Sundays. I make it a point to develop a daily routine of the animal. I talk to him, feed him and sing songs so that he might be familiar with human company.
Both of them also take many rounds of the barbed place with the song playing in the background and during the walk, Khalil patiently waits for the animal to pick grass from the ground or sniff the branches of trees overhead.
According to a zoo worker never before Kaavan had allowed anyone near. It is quite inexplicable for him to depart from his earlier aggressive mood, said he.
On Sunday, Dr Amir Khalil administered eye drops to Kaavan which he said were sour because of inflammation. Kaavan has been in the Zoo for 35 years while the average age of an elephant is 60 or 65. Now it is time for him to spend the rest of his life in peace in the natural habitat, he said.