Do you know where your elephant came from? (on smuggling, suspicion and scientific definition)
Back in late November I reached deep into my pockets and paid for myself and my local staff to attend the 2008 International Elephant Conservation and Research Symposium held in Pattaya, as well as a chance to catch up with old friends and to race them down from the Surin Round-Up (which we had all been attending) we learned a multitude of useful things, most too boring to bother you with and, as usual, way over my head.
One of the numbers and statistics that did spring up was that Thailand now has between 3,600 to 4,000 domesticated eles - two years ago I went to a similar conference and was told that we had 3,456 eles.
This number caused much debate in the back rows, at the time I argued that this increase might just be possible through breeding - not being a statistician or a proper scientist, I figured that our camp of 30 (ish) eles had had two born in that time so if we surmise that the 3,456 was made up of 100 camps of 30 (ish) with the same breeding success that would produce your 200 new eles.
If there were no deaths, and factoring in those camps with a breeding policy - which we don't have - this could explain the 3,600 numbers but not much more than this, also the question, why the grey area? Surely if every elephant is micro-chipped and registered there shouldn't be the old plus or minus 200 eles.
The debate died in another beer and we moved on.
Back in mid-December the issue raised it's head again, the international organisation TRAFFIC released a paper based on research between 2004 - 2006, investigating, at length, the smuggling of elephant parts - particularly ivory - out of or through Burma, with a small almost footnote at the end dealing with the wild capture and smuggling of Burmese elephants, mainly babies, into Thailand.
They found a customs policeman in the Three Pagoda's Pass that was willing to share his notebook showing 240 transported and (presumably) re-registered elephants through his check point in the 18 months leading up to 2006 - he knew it was illegal and charged a bribe because he was saving to go to the World Cup in Germany (so that was alright then, as long as you are bribing with a goal in mind...).
This information ties in with a comment made to me by a prominent Thai ele conservationist that they had followed a baby captured in Burma through the Thai border, the re-registering, and to the streets. I also feel that the Pass is not the only place the eles come across, for a period in late 2006 it seemed that every elephant truck driver I spoke to was on his way to Mae Sarieng in the mountains on the border above Chiang Mai to "pick up a baby" - these could have been legally bred, of course, but still....
My mahouts would look at me and say the borders are, at best, 100 years old and the trade is thousands of years old, what's the problem (apart from the bribe)?
The first problem would be the depletion of Burma's wild populations, in the old days a baby was worth nothing and let go, just a few sub-adults were taken as needed; now, with an alleged Government tax of 100% over there - for every ele kept one has to be given to the Government - and with the babies also taken the forests must be emptying as quickly as they are allegedly being cut down.
Secondly and something that wouldn't be picked up by the statistics, the trade is quite possibly two way, babies are coming across to Thailand and adult elephants might be going across to Burma and Laos for logging purposes - if this is the case then the population of babies being taken from Burmese forests may be far higher than the raw total of 3,600 registered Thai elephants would suggest.
Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, it creates a grey area, some of the more reactionary websites used this information to repeat a call for people to boycott elephants in Thailand as every elephant in a Thai camp was 'almost certainly caught in Burma' - we may know that this is not true, the 'almost certainly' bit, but even having to admit there is a possibility makes it difficult to defend.
At the Anantara, Four Seasons and Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation camps we are working on submitting our eles to a global website that holds a stud-book, the initial work was done by stud book holder with information taken directly from our website and I was shocked to see our eles listed as wild-caught - his reply to my shock reflected the international view that many elephants used here are wild caught and could not be represented as captive bred without proper certification of both parents, something practically impossible to obtain to a Zoo standard which would include DNA profiles of the parents etc.
It remains to be seen whether he'll settle for the ambiguous moniker of 'Origin Unknown' - to an apolitical studbook keeper there's not much difference, they're main interest would be the genetic mix of the parents, but you and I wouldn't visit a camp where all the elephants are listed as wild caught - at best the illegal trade inhibits genuine scientific research and record keeping that may one day save the species.
With a grey area, no-one knows what is going on so a regional or global management programme becomes impossible to set up and implement, problems aren't spotted until too late; with a grey area the tourism industry which is currently in all sorts of trouble but is looking after Thailand's genuine domestic, captive bred elephants (mostly) to the best of it's ability suffers another set back - and those not determined to support to the best of their ability get a source of cheap elephants.
We remain committed to helping to further any research that we feel will one day help the species, but please rest assured, whatever the scientific genetic definition of the blood stock of the elephants in my care, I have not taken to roaming the forests and removing elephants.
One of the numbers and statistics that did spring up was that Thailand now has between 3,600 to 4,000 domesticated eles - two years ago I went to a similar conference and was told that we had 3,456 eles.
This number caused much debate in the back rows, at the time I argued that this increase might just be possible through breeding - not being a statistician or a proper scientist, I figured that our camp of 30 (ish) eles had had two born in that time so if we surmise that the 3,456 was made up of 100 camps of 30 (ish) with the same breeding success that would produce your 200 new eles.
If there were no deaths, and factoring in those camps with a breeding policy - which we don't have - this could explain the 3,600 numbers but not much more than this, also the question, why the grey area? Surely if every elephant is micro-chipped and registered there shouldn't be the old plus or minus 200 eles.
The debate died in another beer and we moved on.
Back in mid-December the issue raised it's head again, the international organisation TRAFFIC released a paper based on research between 2004 - 2006, investigating, at length, the smuggling of elephant parts - particularly ivory - out of or through Burma, with a small almost footnote at the end dealing with the wild capture and smuggling of Burmese elephants, mainly babies, into Thailand.
They found a customs policeman in the Three Pagoda's Pass that was willing to share his notebook showing 240 transported and (presumably) re-registered elephants through his check point in the 18 months leading up to 2006 - he knew it was illegal and charged a bribe because he was saving to go to the World Cup in Germany (so that was alright then, as long as you are bribing with a goal in mind...).
This information ties in with a comment made to me by a prominent Thai ele conservationist that they had followed a baby captured in Burma through the Thai border, the re-registering, and to the streets. I also feel that the Pass is not the only place the eles come across, for a period in late 2006 it seemed that every elephant truck driver I spoke to was on his way to Mae Sarieng in the mountains on the border above Chiang Mai to "pick up a baby" - these could have been legally bred, of course, but still....
My mahouts would look at me and say the borders are, at best, 100 years old and the trade is thousands of years old, what's the problem (apart from the bribe)?
The first problem would be the depletion of Burma's wild populations, in the old days a baby was worth nothing and let go, just a few sub-adults were taken as needed; now, with an alleged Government tax of 100% over there - for every ele kept one has to be given to the Government - and with the babies also taken the forests must be emptying as quickly as they are allegedly being cut down.
Secondly and something that wouldn't be picked up by the statistics, the trade is quite possibly two way, babies are coming across to Thailand and adult elephants might be going across to Burma and Laos for logging purposes - if this is the case then the population of babies being taken from Burmese forests may be far higher than the raw total of 3,600 registered Thai elephants would suggest.
Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, it creates a grey area, some of the more reactionary websites used this information to repeat a call for people to boycott elephants in Thailand as every elephant in a Thai camp was 'almost certainly caught in Burma' - we may know that this is not true, the 'almost certainly' bit, but even having to admit there is a possibility makes it difficult to defend.
At the Anantara, Four Seasons and Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation camps we are working on submitting our eles to a global website that holds a stud-book, the initial work was done by stud book holder with information taken directly from our website and I was shocked to see our eles listed as wild-caught - his reply to my shock reflected the international view that many elephants used here are wild caught and could not be represented as captive bred without proper certification of both parents, something practically impossible to obtain to a Zoo standard which would include DNA profiles of the parents etc.
It remains to be seen whether he'll settle for the ambiguous moniker of 'Origin Unknown' - to an apolitical studbook keeper there's not much difference, they're main interest would be the genetic mix of the parents, but you and I wouldn't visit a camp where all the elephants are listed as wild caught - at best the illegal trade inhibits genuine scientific research and record keeping that may one day save the species.
With a grey area, no-one knows what is going on so a regional or global management programme becomes impossible to set up and implement, problems aren't spotted until too late; with a grey area the tourism industry which is currently in all sorts of trouble but is looking after Thailand's genuine domestic, captive bred elephants (mostly) to the best of it's ability suffers another set back - and those not determined to support to the best of their ability get a source of cheap elephants.
We remain committed to helping to further any research that we feel will one day help the species, but please rest assured, whatever the scientific genetic definition of the blood stock of the elephants in my care, I have not taken to roaming the forests and removing elephants.
Posted by John Roberts at Fri, 02 Jan 2009 07:32:00 GMT 
Categories: Golden Triangle Elephants, Regional Elephants
Categories: Golden Triangle Elephants, Regional Elephants
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