It's no fun being in musth, so why bother?
Poor old Boun Liang, Lucky Boy as he's known across at Four Seasons; he's in musth again, I've never known an ele quite like him for his hormones, he'll pop into and out of musth at irregular times and in irregular places and no-one seems to be able to tell us why.
As usual I have my own theory and, as usual, the fact that it is unproven and unprovable won't stop me burdening you with it. We bought him in Phrae, he was sold to us as a tuskless male of ex-logging provenance - his paperwork was many years out of date and covered in inky thumb prints, to legally purchase him we had to track down the descendant of a long dead inky thumbed master mahout from the mountains of Galieng country.
We spotted early on (in fact before we bought him but don't tell the boss) that he did have tusks at one point and that they'd been ripped out at the root and that he was carrying massive infections where his ivory should have been, he was obviously starved and had been worked to breaking point - he's the ele of which Mor Tom at the T.E.C.C. said "Good heart makes a bad businessman".
With a life history like this, suddenly coming into good food, light or no work and good daily care; wouldn't a body bereft of energy for thirty years perform its most energy intensive function and pop into musth as often as possible? - perhaps in those years he was so underfed as to never have a musth period?
Outside his musth periods he's beautifully calm and not dangerously obnoxious as he is when hormonal we daily clean the pits that remained - talking with Richard Lair yesterday he explained that there have been several spates of tusk stealing, that actually cutting the tusks causes no pain but the problem comes when they cut too high up and have to go through the fleshy core, this can cause an infection which will become intensely painful, Richard surmises that what then happened with Boun Liang is the remainder of the infected tusk was removed by the owner and mahout prior to selling.
I also learned from an old time mahout that another problem with losing the tusks on your elephant in the logging days was that you were downgraded in status and pay as the usefulness of your ele went down - in essence you lose your forklift bonus.
(I couldn't get Youtube to play his video but it is available here)
So if, when in musth, you have to go around with a massive headache for anything up to six months a year, be in a bad mood and, be you a domestic elephant, not be in a position to receive the pampering you're used to - why bother? A common misconception is that it is the mating season and being in musth is like being in heat, not quite so as a male ele seems to be always ready for a bit of action - indeed the irony for those who believe this is that it is Phu Ki our young tusker who is getting his oats at the moment because Boun Liang is too violently bad tempered and separated from the other eles for their safety.
The best reasoning I've read is that it is a deliberate season to persuade young bulls to challenge authority, African studies have shown that while males are happy to mate at any time it is the musth bulls who do get most of the girls. In the wild, given the longevity of eles, a large dominant male may rule the roost and be able to monopolise the breeding over several herds for as long as thirty to forty years - not good for genetic diversity or the morals of your daughters.
Musth, they contend, is nature's way of filling the young lads with testosterone and bravado, with not a little violence, in order to allow them to have a shout at keeping the genes diverse - in nature, nothing in it's right mind enters a fight it cannot win as the stakes of injury are too high, so musth puts the guys out of their right mind and makes them just psycho enough that even the big boys won't mess with them.
Makes sense to me - unfortunately none of this helps poor Boun Liang whose authority figure to rebel against is us and whose would-be consorts are too fragile to be left in the hands of a mad-man - we just have to get as close as he lets us and help him through it again.
As usual I have my own theory and, as usual, the fact that it is unproven and unprovable won't stop me burdening you with it. We bought him in Phrae, he was sold to us as a tuskless male of ex-logging provenance - his paperwork was many years out of date and covered in inky thumb prints, to legally purchase him we had to track down the descendant of a long dead inky thumbed master mahout from the mountains of Galieng country.
We spotted early on (in fact before we bought him but don't tell the boss) that he did have tusks at one point and that they'd been ripped out at the root and that he was carrying massive infections where his ivory should have been, he was obviously starved and had been worked to breaking point - he's the ele of which Mor Tom at the T.E.C.C. said "Good heart makes a bad businessman".
With a life history like this, suddenly coming into good food, light or no work and good daily care; wouldn't a body bereft of energy for thirty years perform its most energy intensive function and pop into musth as often as possible? - perhaps in those years he was so underfed as to never have a musth period?
Outside his musth periods he's beautifully calm and not dangerously obnoxious as he is when hormonal we daily clean the pits that remained - talking with Richard Lair yesterday he explained that there have been several spates of tusk stealing, that actually cutting the tusks causes no pain but the problem comes when they cut too high up and have to go through the fleshy core, this can cause an infection which will become intensely painful, Richard surmises that what then happened with Boun Liang is the remainder of the infected tusk was removed by the owner and mahout prior to selling.
I also learned from an old time mahout that another problem with losing the tusks on your elephant in the logging days was that you were downgraded in status and pay as the usefulness of your ele went down - in essence you lose your forklift bonus.
(I couldn't get Youtube to play his video but it is available here)
So if, when in musth, you have to go around with a massive headache for anything up to six months a year, be in a bad mood and, be you a domestic elephant, not be in a position to receive the pampering you're used to - why bother? A common misconception is that it is the mating season and being in musth is like being in heat, not quite so as a male ele seems to be always ready for a bit of action - indeed the irony for those who believe this is that it is Phu Ki our young tusker who is getting his oats at the moment because Boun Liang is too violently bad tempered and separated from the other eles for their safety.
The best reasoning I've read is that it is a deliberate season to persuade young bulls to challenge authority, African studies have shown that while males are happy to mate at any time it is the musth bulls who do get most of the girls. In the wild, given the longevity of eles, a large dominant male may rule the roost and be able to monopolise the breeding over several herds for as long as thirty to forty years - not good for genetic diversity or the morals of your daughters.
Musth, they contend, is nature's way of filling the young lads with testosterone and bravado, with not a little violence, in order to allow them to have a shout at keeping the genes diverse - in nature, nothing in it's right mind enters a fight it cannot win as the stakes of injury are too high, so musth puts the guys out of their right mind and makes them just psycho enough that even the big boys won't mess with them.
Makes sense to me - unfortunately none of this helps poor Boun Liang whose authority figure to rebel against is us and whose would-be consorts are too fragile to be left in the hands of a mad-man - we just have to get as close as he lets us and help him through it again.
Posted by John Roberts at Thu, 15 May 2008 07:58:00 GMT 
Categories: Golden Triangle Elephants, Regional Elephants
Categories: Golden Triangle Elephants, Regional Elephants
I think you could be right. Sounds like Boun Liang hasn't ever experienced such a high social rank nor high quality of nutrition and husbandry so his endocrine system is now just having a field day joyously pumping out testosterone for his temporal glands to concentrate.
Most of the articles and my bible of a textbook (I think there's a copy in the drawer of the desk at camp) more or less say "musth is natural so let it be" but I think that's just because they're waiting to see evidence for other management methods. For example there's more and more stuff coming out about the use of synthetic GnRH analogues or newer GnRH antagonists to control musth (which is what I think you and Mor Pep were tossing up when I was there) like this article which you've probably read 'Control of musth in an Asian elephant bull using leuprolide acetate' de Oliveira et al J Zoo Wild Med 35(1) p70-76 http://apt.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1638%2F02-091&ct=1
As for the tusk removal issue. Here's a good example of how the pros do it at Portland Zoo, Oregon
'Tusko's Tusk Extraction'
http://www.oregonzoo.org/Gallery/video.htm#asianElephants
Steph :o)
Reply to this
Hi Steph
Thanks for the video - being watched by Dr Cherry over her GPRS in Lampang as we speak I think!
I tend to agree to leave well alone, let him have his musth, if you subdue it now who knows what will happen further down the line?
My reason for discussing the drug with Dr Pap and then Dr Cherry is that the traditional way of handling musth is to limit high energy food and feed high bulk, low sugar fodder as a staple - a kind of Atkins for Eles - which is great for a week or two but if he will stay musthing for six months despite the low energy it cannot be healthy for him; putting him back on the high energy just seems to prolong the period where we cannot treat him and make him even less approachable.
A catch 22 that a chemical suppressant may help alleviate - the danger, having proved it works with no short term side effects, would be the temptation for others to use it to eliminate musth completely from their working bulls without properly understanding long term consequences.
The drug hasn't yet arrived so we are managing traditionally.
Reply to this
so is boun liang in pain? and will his infection subside?
thanks you all for taking such good care of these eles!
Reply to this
Hi Kat
I think most musth eles feel some discomfort through swollen musth glands behind the eyes, often alleviated in tuskers by driving tusks into the ground - Boun Liang's infections also hurt when we can't get to him to treat them.
The best advice is that if they haven't subsided by now they probably never will so we treat on when allowed by his hormones!
Reply to this