Confronted with widespread manipulation of implanted micro-chips to keep track of the elephant population, the Kerala state government will soon roll out DNA fingerprinting for its captive elephant population at a cost of Rs 40 lakh.
DNA fingerprinting is considered the ultimate technique in identifying an individual.
Kerala, which has about 700 captive elephants, has banned their import from other states, yet smuggling elephants from other states has been detected and it was to check this and to identify the existing captive elephants that micro-chips were introduced.
