Bhubaneswar, Oct.4 (ANI): Bhubaneswar Zoo authorities celebrated 'Elephant Day' here on Thursday to create awareness about the pachyderms and reaffirm their commitment towards wildlife conservation.
Forest officials and students offered bananas and coconuts to the decorated jumbos on the occasion.
The Director of the Nandankanan Zoo, Sudarshan Panda, said the aim of celebrating the festival was to focus on the conservation programmes for the endangered animal.
"Today, we are celebrating 'Elephant Day' in Nandankanan. It is a state level celebration. Every first week of October, in the entire country, we are celebrating 'Wildlife Week' to create awareness and to reaffirm our commitment towards wildlife conservation," said Panda.
"On 4th October of every year, we celebrate 'Elephant Day' just to focus our conservation programmes on elephants and to create massive awareness amongst public and children for conservation of elephants," Panda added.
He also said that 'Wildlife Week' would be celebrated on Saturday.
Conservationists have said that elephant and rhino poaching are surging due to an increase in demand for legally sourced wildlife products.
Chandan Kumar, a resident of the city, said that poaching and habitat loss remains a threat to elephants.
"Of late, we have seen lot of conflicts between the elephants and the humans. Basically, lots of incidents are happening, and, I believe that lot of it is because of us, and we have been actually intruding into their lives into their areas. So, it is time that we, as responsible human beings, actually start to treat other wildlife as a part of our family, give them due respect and obviously take care of their lives," said Kumar.
About 50,000 wild Asian elephants existed a century ago, but the first comprehensive elephant census published in 2005 showed a steep drop in numbers to just 21,300.
India has over 50 per cent of Asiatic elephants, considered to be among the most intelligent animals, but their population has dwindled in recent years. (ANI)
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