On Elephants
I like elephants. I’ve been fascinated by them ever since I saw my first one at the zoo, when I was four. I like the sense of calm they exude, even though they’re such massive beasts. Colonel Haathi and his family were my favorite part of Disney’s Jungle Book cartoon, that I watched at least several thousand times, growing up. And as I grew older, the more I learned about them, the more I came to like and respect them. We humans tend to anthromorphise dumb animals, crediting them with human-like attributes and emotions they don’t have, but in the case of elephants we’re not so far off. Elephants are complex and self-aware individuals. They possess distinct histories, personalities and interests, exhibit compassion for others and are capable of complex emotions and of suffering both physically and mentally. They construct an intelligent understanding of their world through an intricate interaction of experience, social learning and memory. Elephants have families. They grieve for their dead.
And through much of human history, elephants have been our companions. They transported us and our goods, built our monuments and sauntered through our parades. And through most of human history, the methods used to capture and train elephants have become part of certain cultures’ tradition, methods passed down by word of mouth, from mahout to apprentice. Take for example, the method used in Thailand, of beginning the training of a baby elephant, born into captivity. At about two years old, the baby elephant is separated from its mother. The mother is sent off to another village or into the forest, and for the first time in its life, the baby is without her protection. So as not to hurt her, she is lured into her training area with fruit and treats, by the people of the village, the only humans she’s known, and trusts. Then she is forcibly restrained, using chains so that she is stretched out in a completely vulnerable position and mercilessly beaten for several days straight with a metal bullhook, to break her spirit. She is left in solitary confinement for several days, with no food or water, her only interaction being regular beatings. At the end of it, if she survives, she is a shell of her former self, and ready for her “training”. The training consists of severe punishment for any normal elephant behaviour and small rewards for submissive behaviour or for the performance of tricks. Through this system of harsh punishment and tiny rewards the elephant is trained. Its how a tiny asian guy establishes control over a three ton behemoth. This elephant is one of the lucky ones. It was born into captivity, so its mother’s life was spared. In most cases poachers have to kill the mother to get the calf, if capturing wild elephants. Wild adult elephants are no good to us, they are too hard to break.
One thing I notice about traveling through Asia is the plethora of elephant trips, mahout courses and various elephant related activities. They’re pretty popular with tourists, I know of at least two of my friends that went on mahout courses in Thailand in the last three months. Baby elephants roam the tourist-frequented spots of Asia’s large cities, posing for photo-ops and begging for handouts (for their handlers). And, to a limited extent, elephants in rural areas still work at carrying loads, mostly in the logging industry. In my opinion, the thousands of tourists that go on elephant treks or mahout courses in places like Laos, South Africa and Thailand every year financially support widespread animal abuse. To be fair, most of this is through ignorance of the behind the scenes process of elephant capture and “training”. And simple disbelief that anyone could do such things to animals. There’s a reason this takes place behind the scenes. A real mahout course would have you bludgeoning an elephant with a metal hook, an activity distasteful to most people.
Elephants, like most people who see no way to escape, may appear happy even in harsh living conditions. Such behaviour is not evidence that their living conditions are acceptable, but is similar to the Stockholm Syndrome in which kidnap victims become sympathetic to their captors. Captives begin to identify with their captors. Small acts of kindness by the captor are exaggerated, since finding perspective in a hostage situation is impossible. These symptoms occur under severe emotional and often physical duress and are a common survival strategy for victims of abuse, including battered spouses, abused children, prisoners of war, and concentration camp survivors. The elephant response is no different. It’s a survival mechanism. Not to say that eventually an elephant’s mahouts don’t come to respect and love it. In probably the same way an abusive husband loves his wife.
What of the villager’s ancient and traditional way of life? Well, what of it? The zeitgeist marches forward. Just because we’ve abused elephants for millenia doesn’t mean this should be allowed to continue through inertia and misguided good intentions. A single tractor / forklift minicombo could probably do the work of several elephants, so if we’re worried about poor villagers losing out on the work done by elephants, that can easily be replaced for a price. It’s my opinion that providing machines that compensate for work done by elephants should be part of the approach taken by elephant welfare organizations. Caterpillars for Elephants if you will. Humans will always take precedence over animals, and economic incentives trump good intentions. In my opinion, most animal rights advocates often present solutions that are unworkable outside of the more socially conscious developed countries.
Passion, concern for animal welfare and good intentions are great, but a bunch of affluent suburban kids with PETA signs protesting outside a consulate, trying to get a blanket ban on captive elephants aren’t going to change anything. I will give them credit for doing a good job of researching and bringing into the public eye these issues though. However, I think the only thing that will work is a combination of making captive elephants economically unviable, and job creation in other areas, for people in the elephant tourism industry. Most captive elephants these days aren’t workers, they’re there for the tourists, for the zoos and for the circuses. I believe we need to change the way we interact with elephants. The only sustainable way, to keep them happy is to establish elephant reserves, where elephant – human interaction is at a minimum. We just make sure they aren’t being poached, help them in times of drought or disease, and stay out of their way and observe them from a distance the rest of the time, on their own terms.
I’m cynical enough to believe that most people really don’t care much about this issue, if it doesn’t affect them directly, and as long as the suffering isn’t happening right in front of them. If that’s the case, consider this: You can only push a free-willed, social creature so far. You may break its spirit, for a while, but eventually it will snap. I would. And you don’t want to be around when it does.
Some excerpts from documented elephant incidents in Thailand:
April 1991: An elephant was frightened by a camera flash and trampled a person to death.
March 17, 1997: A spooked elephant killed an Australian man at a tourist show in northern Thailand.
April 24, 2000: An elephant used in a tourist park went berserk during a show and attacked three tourists from Britain, killing one and seriously injuring the other two.
February 14, 2000: A bull elephant tossed his handler off his back and went berserk in the heart of Bangkok, stampeding through a major shopping district before being tranquilized. The elephant was hungry and exhausted from walking along the busy streets begging for money for his handler, a common practice in Thailand.
Granted, these incidents are rare. However, I for one don’t want these three ton time bombs around when I travel. I’d rather have happy, contented beasts living with their families, in their natural habitats, that I can look at from a reasonable distance, that they feel comfortable with. It’s the future of human - elephant interaction. Elephants living in protected reserves, allowing travelers and tourists to view them from a distance, on their own terms.
What can you do?
- Don’t ride an elephant. Ever. In spite of what you may be told, there is no way to make an elephant safe to ride besides the methods described above. Even then, its not entirely safe for the rider.
- Don’t support entertainment venues that use elephants, such as circuses.
- This should be kind of obvious but: No Ivory.
- No part of an elephant is a useful ingredient in any medication. Don’t buy any that uses elephant parts. Especially certain eastern and alternate medicine.
- Again, Don’t ride an elephant. Ever. I can’t emphasize this point enough.
Its important to differentiate between some of the places posing as Elephant welfare centers to attract socially conscious dollars and true Elephant welfare centers. Elephants don’t want to give you rides, perform tricks or paint pictures with their trunks. They’re not doing it through positive reinforcement or expectation of a treat. They’re doing it because of fear of a beating with a bullhook. Real Elephant Welfare centers usually have elephants rescued from circuses, zoos and places you can ride elephants, won’t let you ride the elephants, and don’t expect elephants to perform on command. Your interaction with the elephants are on their own terms. While there are a few progressive zoos that use positive reinforcement exclusively, to train the elephants, you will never ever be able to ride an elephant trained using positive reinforcement. If you do, and the elephant decides it doesn’t want you on its back about halfway through the ride, you will get seriously injured.
Elephants have served humans for millenia. I understand that we needed the labour and transport they provided in the past, however, we don’t need them to work for us any more, and we owe them better than this. Continuing to torture them for a misguided elephant “experience” (after the first fifteen minutes, once the novelty wears off, an elephant ride is actually pretty uncomfortable) is just wrong. Times have changed, and while my first experience with an elephant was it chained to a concrete post in a zoo, I’m really hoping the next generation will have a richer, more rewarding experience seeing elephant families in their natural habitat, living their lives.
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Sources:
http://www.helpthaielephants.com
http://www.savewildelephants.com
Elephant abuse has been well documented, and there are many videos and pictures of this online. I don’t want to link to them here, but take my word for it, its horrific. You can find these pictures and videos easily if you want to see them. I’ve seen video of baby elephants being beaten, and it isn’t pretty.
by Gaddis
by Harris
by Sachs
