Report from the Performing Animal Welfare Society (4/13/99)

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Report of Ed Stewart, the Performing Animal Welfare Society on Loki, the elephant at the Mudumalai Elephant Camp and the Baby of Bandipur (7 April - 13 April)

My short stay in India consisted of several meetings with Indian Forestry officials and Rob Silberstein of the American Consulate General; visits to two elephant camps, Mudumalai in Tamil Nadu and Bandipur in Karnataka; and meetings with five persons directly responsible for the elephant inmates at the camps including VR Chitrapu, Chief Conservator of Forests- Tamil Nadu. While at the Mudumalai Elephant Camp, I was allowed to visit Loki, the 35-40 year old tuskless male elephant, and videotape his condition.

The area where the two elephant camps are located is incredibly beautiful and is, I understand, part of a United Nations Biosphere Reserve. Unfortunately, elephant populations in this area are prone to crop-raiding due to a lack of adequate natural vegetation and the increasing development of agricultural areas. Loki/Murthy, after having lived as a wild elephant for 35 years, was captured while crop-raiding. Nothing is more unjust than the denial of freedom to an innocent creature who is simply behaving as nature intended him to behave. Today, wild elephants are becoming more of an anachronism than a natural heritage.

Unable to resist the temptation of sugar cane, coconut palms and various other crops, Loki was captured and dragged by leg chains to the Mudumalai Elephant Camp where, as stated in a report from Minister Maneka Gandhi, "he was severely injured during capture and terribly ill treated thereafter in a misguided attempt to 'train' him." Existing video and audio tapes of his capture and "training" depict his terrible ordeal of repeated beatings and physical and mental punishment.

Loki is now described as a "good camp elephant" although his physical wounds are only approximately 50% healed with pus still pumping from injuries on his lower legs. His right front leg is swollen to the shoulder, he has an abnormal drainage exuding from both eyes, and several of his toenails are distorted due to the injuries. Loki has deteriorated from an independent, physically powerful, mentally alert bull elephant to a broken machine with no autocephalous thought. He has, according to camp personnel, lost weight. The bones of his skull appear to have a thin covering of skin with very little flesh. He now stands silently holding the mahout's stick with his trunk like an obedient child, wearing a cowbell around his neck. He is not "free to wander about the elephant camp" as stated in Minister Gandhi's report; he is forced to drag a long, heavy chain which must weigh hundreds of pounds. He has also been hobbled with chains on his injured front legs.

Elephants are designed by nature for life in the wild. In any captive situation, they are deprived of natural movement, natural feeding, watering, bathing, breeding; they are not allowed to make independent choices. They, literally, have little reason to survive.

What did it take to change Loki from one of the most powerful animals on earth to an obedient camp inmate? I found the answer a few kilometers down the road, across the border in Karnataka.

A lactating female elephant had been killed, either shot or electrocuted (both illegal), on 8 April. Her young calf, who had remained by her body, was taken to the elephant camp in Bandipur Reserve. I saw this young, nursing baby tied with a heavy neck rope to one tree and a back leg rope to another tree. He was struggling to free himself, confused and wailing, twisting and becoming partially entangled in the ropes. The mahouts were taunting him and encouraging him to strike at them.

Baby elephants are born into a society of love and nurturing with the attention of the entire herd focused upon them. To have lost his mother and his family and to be restrained in this manner with no comfort was terribly stressful and traumatic for the baby. We have raised a wild elephant calf at PAWS without ever having to resort to the kind of restraint and abuse which I witnessed that day. I was amazed that mahouts who have vast experience with elephants could be so limited in their knowledge of working with young elephants.

The mahouts, with the aid of two large camp elephants, approached the baby at times to adjust the ropes. The young elephant was obviously comforted by the presence of the older elephants, but continually charged his human tormentors when they came within striking distance. Several times a mahout slapped the baby across the trunk with his open hand. When the baby continued to charge, the mahout picked up a tree branch and hit him repeatedly. As they struck the baby, they screamed a verbal command.

I returned the next day and, before I reached the baby, I was summoned to the Forestry Building where I was questioned by two men who wanted to know who I was, where I was from and why I was so interested in the baby elephant. They asked if I was part of Deana Krantz's group, IPAN, and if I knew why there was such a fuss about Loki? After some 45 minutes they allowed me to see the baby elephant. Scores of visitors and tourists had gone to see the elephant, but I was the only one who was stopped and questioned.

This day the baby was roped by one front leg and one back leg to two trees. A mahout was throwing water on the baby to cool it. April is one of the hottest and driest months in South India and the stress of "training" was overheating the baby. Soon the baby charged a mahout who was purposely encroaching on his tightly restricted space. As the baby lashed out at his tormentor, the mahout hit him with a cane across the trunk, the most sensitive part of an elephant's body. The mahout would quickly swing 3 or 4 times before the baby could retreat. The cane appeared to be hard bamboo about 1 and « inches thick and 3 feet long. The mahout hit the baby as hard as he could swing the stick with one hand. If he had been hitting a person as hard and as often as he hit the baby, the person would have been hospitalized with severe injuries, possibly fatal. One swing of that stick would crush the bones of a human face. The process continued for about 20 minutes. I was sickened and horrified. The baby elephant screamed and dropped to the ground.

Although it was extremely difficult to watch the brutal treatment of the newly orphaned baby elephant, I knew that a complaint at that point would probably result in the confiscation of my video tape and camera and I would have no record of the mahout's training. A German tourist had been arrested earlier for attempting to videotape Loki.

If this is the "training" of a baby elephant, what horrors do elephants the size and strength of Loki endure? The personnel at the forestry camps believe the end justifies the means and the result is a "good camp elephant" Yet, one wonders to what purpose do they become "good camp elephants"? They are no longer necessary for war or logging and the training of these elephants, when exposed, will surely cause tourists to think twice about elephant rides and photographs with elephants. The mystique of India's mahout elephant training has been shattered over the past few months. Camp elephants are controlled by dominance, chains and cruel training; they would leave the camp if they had a choice. The archaic tradition of elephant camps has no future in the year 2000. If India's elephant population is to survive, alternative methods must be initiated and the elephant camps must be closed or replaced by sanctuaries where captive elephants could retain some vestige of their character and dignity.

In my meeting with Mr. Udhayan, Wildlife Warden at Mudumalai, he expressed an interest in alternatives to mahout training. I will be forwarding information to him about "protected contact", a system which is used in some zoos. There are many variations of this system, but the basic concept is the elimination of all negative reinforcement and punishment and the use of only positive reinforcement to elicit a behavior.

Based on what I have observed, after long discussions with Pat Derby, we would like to make the following suggestions regarding Loki and the elephant camps in India:

1. What has been done to Loki cannot be undone and the forest officials take great pride in his "rehabilitation to a good camp elephant". He is now used for "show and tell". They are upset that the international community does not agree with them. We should attempt to obtain official approval to build something for Loki where he can be left off chains and will no longer be "trained".
2. The greater problem is the increasing number of crop-raiding elephants who are killed and captured thereby diminishing the wild elephant population. Regarding capture methods as they were used on Loki, we believe this should never be an option. Indian mahouts have been trapping elephants for hundreds of years and they are quite inventive with capture techniques; they can certainly devise a less stressful way of capturing elephants. We would be happy to consult on alternatives and to help fund projects to develop alternatives and purchase equipment. We are also involved in projects in Africa to diminish human/elephant conflicts and, while in India, I researched ways to keep wild elephants out of agricultural areas. I learned that trenches are the most efficacious in India at a reasonable cost. We would like to help by initiating a pilot project around some of the more troublesome areas.
3. Elephant camps should be eliminated and replaced with elephant sanctuaries. I learned that elephant camps were originally established to house elephants to be used for war. Later, they were converted to house elephants for logging and safaris. There is no need for these camps today, and they could be developed into sanctuaries for orphan babies, temple elephants and captured elephants. Trenches could be built around the camps to keep wild elephants out and the captive elephants in. The captive elephants could live in a natural setting with no chains and no training other than positive reinforcement. PAWS would pay for a pilot program to be developed in the two camps that I visited, Mudumalai and Bandipur.

I have enclosed a copy of our letter to Maneka Gandhi in response to her report on Loki which was sent to all concerned regarding his treatment. Her report graphically demonstrates the misconceptions that prevail within the Indian government.

Hopefully, we can create a cooperative effort to protect the human population of India while preserving the numbers of wild elephants who are standing on the brink of extinction and have little time left. Loki was invaluable to the wild populations of elephants since he is a Makhna and therefore safe from poachers. His capture has further reduced the gene pool for wild populations. Captive breeding programs, to date, have failed to produce elephants who would be suitable candidates for reintroduction, so the hope for the preservation of India's elephants lies in the protection of the wild elephants and their habitat. Loki's suffering has not benefited elephants as a species and cannot be termed conservation.

I traveled to India with no preconceptions and expected to evaluate the Loki situation with a positive and optimistic attitude. I regret deeply the experiences that I have filmed which are the basis of my report and my opinion regarding Loki, mahout training and the elephant camps. I doubt that any diplomatic solution will be forthcoming so it is obvious that the only way to prevent further suffering of elephants like Loki is exposure of the problem. While it may appear to some as the "marketing of misery in India", the suffering of elephants like Loki and the baby of Bandipur must be exposed at any cost. It is an uncomfortable time for everyone involved, but no one is as uncomfortable as the elephants.

Sincerely,

Ed Stewart
Director
Performing Animal Welfare Society