Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation

Movement...

2011-06-20T03:58:11Z

...since the owner of this internet company shot an elephant I don't really feel comfortable blogging here.

From now on my main blog will be held on the Anantara website - less easy to follow and to search - but no-one has ever accused my writing of being easy to follow.

Hope to see you on the other side: http://bit.ly/knmjSZ

John

Why're you wasting your time? I could've told you that (on the intelligence of scientists)

2011-03-27T13:43:00Z

Elephant tuned people such as yourselves can't have missed the recent publication of yet another paper in which some foreign boffins came & told us what we thought we already knew. With a series of rigs, nets, rope & not a bit of perseverance they deduced that elephants were clever and could work together.

Well duh! Surely everyone who has sat in the back of a Land Rover in Africa or Sri Lanka and seen the great herds wondering around in groups would have to guess the reason they stuck together was some form of cooperation, the fact we've seen videos on youtube of mothers and aunts helping babies who're stuck in the mud tells us so, why waste your massive brains to tell us what we already know? Anyone who's seen the elephants pick up a mahout's sandals for him after the bathing or read about how the elephants helped us win wars or remove our big trees must know they cooperate, even with us, right? Get a little deeper and read the old books, the ones the teak wallahs wrote between their chota pegs (or when they got home & were living in dreary East Anglia (sorry East Anglia) reading their diaries and dreaming, misty eyed, of the jungle), every one of them will have a chapter full of stories of elephants helping each other seemingly unbidden, in some cases working out human problems before the humans had discovered the problem. I've spoken with people who swear elephants have saved their lives from either other elephants or rhinos, I've personally ridden a logging elephant who helped me pass a mahouting exam (don't tell the examiners) by stacking a pile of logs with zero input from myself.

If we know it, what's the point in wasting all this time & energy just so you can write big papers & get on TV? I could've told you that, why aren't I on TV?

At this stage I'll let you in on a secret, I've told that I knew elephants could cooperate long before the paper made the big time, but I knew because the scientist who drove the research is a friend of mine and is now Head of Research for our little Foundation, Dr Josh Plotnik. I knew because he showed me the videos and told me what they meant, not only to him but to the outside scientific world.

Now, let me try and go through it in terms I understand, apologies if I take it a little slow but, as you know, I'm a bit thick so my logical steps need to be small (& Josh is currently, for a little while, counting crows in Cambridge and so can't slap the back of my head & correct me if I get it wrong).

The intricate design of the rig is not that important, suffice to say, Josh and the mahouts devised a system that required two elephants to work at the same time in order to get a treat.

The point of the work was not to prove they cooperate, many species cooperate, the point of the work was to see if they understand why they need to cooperate and understand the nature of cooperation altogether. Are they clever like ants who always seem to build their nests in the right place or clever like us who understand that helping each other can have mutual benefit (& hopefully are not stupid like us as to sometimes choose not to cooperate even though it is to our mutual detriment).

In order to do this Josh adapted an experiment that had been used with Chimps way back in the 30's (if you're going to convince the scientific world you have discovered what you think you have discovered it is best to use or adapt techniques that have already been agreed prove the things you want to prove, albeit in different situations).

In the video below they built a table too heavy for one Chimp to pull to see if they would work together to get the food (for the second experiment they let one chimp go hungry & the other well fed to see if they truly understood - hey, what goes in the '30's stays in the '30's).

Now, you'll be glad to hear Josh isn't in the business of starving elephants and it is next to impossible to build something heavy enough for one elephant to have trouble pulling it but get it so that two can do it without strain.

Josh himself will explain how he adapted the experiment in a video at the end, what I'm trying to do is explain why all these complex steps were needed in the first place when we all 'know' elephants are smart and work together.

For the first test they let two elephants take a look at the experimental rig. Lo & behold, they approached the rig, and after a very short time, in unison, began to pull the ropes, drag a table towards them and eat the tasty corn.

Proves they know how to cooperate, right?

Well, no say the scientists. It proves that when they see a rope they pull a rope in a manner they had been previously trained to do.

Convincing scientists of things you already know is a tricky business, it seems.

For the second test they let the elephants look at the rig again, but this time left a time gap between letting each elephant go. This one took a little time, but eventually (though, for those who're used to Chimps or Children remarkably quickly) they learned to wait patiently until their partner arrived (up to 45 seconds) and then, in unison, pull the ropes, drag the table towards them and eat the tasty corn.

Proves they know how to cooperate, right?

Well, no. It proves they know how to pull a rope and they know they need their partner around in order achieve the goal of tasty snacks but, if you're a scientist it doesn't mean they understand the nature of the task before them nor that they are actually cooperating.

For the third test the nasty scientists set them up to fail, they hid one of the ropes, there could be no tasty treats for these elephants. They let the elephants go, this time, after awhile, they all learned to inspect, they all learned to note that the task was impossible &, without even attempting it, they turned around & went home.

Proves they know how to cooperate, right?

Finally, our scientist friends are satisfied. They now believe us, in order to show this behaviour & not attempt the impossible task they MUST understand the nature of task before them, the nature of the work they both have to do and, crucially, that they cannot succeed unless both of them are able to play their part.

That's not all, purely by chance and (to me who swears they're all different) most exciting, one elephant (& only one) seemed to understand the task so well that she worked out she could win the prize without expending any energy herself - and that's pretty much the basic goal of all things living in the wild, to get as much energy input (in the form of food) with as little energy output (in the form of hunting or pushing down trees).

She worked out that if she merely put her foot on the rope her 'friend' would turn up & do all the work. Josh has told me I'm not allowed to read too much into this in the way of her having a supervisory rule or make jokes about the fact her being female allowing her to seem smarter than the rest &, most importantly, that the fact she developed an alternative strategy does not mean she was cheating.

In the game of survival (hard wired into these non-selectively bred beasts) there are no rules, no-one can cheat, you can only learn a better way to play the game and it is this that will have implications for wild elephant protection & human elephant conflict mitigation; to my mind, Josh has proved that it we have to be very careful in rely on solutions that keep elephants and humans (or crops) apart by trickery, be it electric fences, chillies or bees: when presented with a soluble problem, not every elephant, but some elephants are able to step back and seek a solution when the prize is easy energy input.

Far easier, in he long run, to find a way to move the unnaturally high energy foods from what used to be the elephants' territory & let it become so once again.

Of course, easy to type does not mean easy to do - but don't tell me Neu-un hasn't warned you, they will get to your corn (watch Josh's official video below)...

The Wild Elephant Census in Sri Lanka (guest post by Srilal Miththapala)

2011-03-15T06:04:00Z

...I had alluded in a previous post to the difficulties in counting wild elephants and the fact that in Thailand we have no real idea how many wild elephants there are. Mr Srilal Miththapala sent this along in the hope it might be enlightening.

As the small biography at the bottom points out, Srilal is a long term follower of wild elephants and someone who has actively worked in Sri Lanka to ensure the various issues are kept in the public mind.

The article itself outlines the various methods available to those attempting to put a figure on even the largest of mammals in the thick Asian bush and, hopefully, goes some way to explaining the inherent statistical errors involved - the reason most people will only ever give a range instead of an exact number when asked 'how many wild elephants do you have?'.

I wish the Sri Lankan Government luck in this undertaking and, let's see, if they can pull it off perhaps we ought to look to try something similar over here.

_____________________

The Wild Elephant Census in Sri Lanka

11 Mar, 2011 Srilal Miththapala Colombo, Environment

The proposed elephant census that is to be conducted in a few months’ time by the Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWLC) has generated a lot of interest among the public. Obviously, it is not something that happens every day, and there is much discussion and interest being generated in the press, as well as in other discussion forums.

An elephant census is not a simple activity. Many of us would perceive that an elephant census would involve a large number of people going around counting elephants physically. Although the elephant is a large animal, sightings can be quite difficult in many areas because of forest cover. Also by nature elephants are wary of humans and will retreat into denser habitat when approached. So, counting elephants and making a census, is a much more complex procedure.

What is a Census?
Understanding animal abundance, distribution and movement patterns is a very important aspect of wildlife management. Measuring abundance of animal populations essentially means census. Most census methods require complex statistical treatment of the data. No doubt some simple techniques, with a minimum of statistical treatment, can yield useful results if undertaken with a clear understanding of assumptions and limitations.

However this proposed census by the DWLC is, according to reports, a comprehensive island–wide census, with a view of ascertaining the total population of wild elephants in Sri Lanka and their dispersion. Hence this will certainly be a ‘full blown’ census which will be far more complex than a simple area based count to study abundance and movement trends.

Purpose of a Census
A census yields numerical information, like population estimates per area, information about relative abundance, or trends. The adjectives “absent, rare, occasional, common, abundant” denote measures of relative abundance, but even this basic information is lacking for the Sri Lankan elephant. We do even not know the population numbers or dynamics in the national wild life parks. Most often it is efforts by private individuals that yield useful data and information. E.g. Dr Shermin de Silva and Ashoka Ranjeeva’s ongoing in-depth study of the Uda Walawe elephants, over several years now, is throwing out some very interesting information. Whereas originally it was thought that the population in the park was around 300-400, it now appears that the population is as high as 800-1100 during certain periods.

So it is no surprise that there is considerable controversy about the exact number of elephants in the wild in Sri Lanka. Therefore, carrying out a full island-wide comprehensive census is a very important project, and vital to assess the wild elephant population for the purpose of future planning activities.

However, as indicated, an elephant census is a very complex procedure and therefore it must be carried out after proper planning and design, so as to arrive at accurate results. Of course, however well planned, a census can never be able to give very accurate data, but, what is required is reliable population size with abundance and dispersion details. If therefore a census is not done properly, all future planning will be based on erroneous data, which is even more serious, and therefore it would be better not undertake the census at all.

Techniques
There are several well established techniques that are utilized in undertaking a census. Basically there are two types of techniques – Direct and Indirect methods.

Direct Sighting Method
This involves visibly searching for, and counting the animals in a relatively high density habitat. This method is utilized for larger animals such as the elephants, provided the habitat is conducive for direct sighting. A large number of volunteers are utilized to systematically cover areas and undertake the count.

Total Counts
In a total counting, the entire area under surveillance is searched, and all elephants sighted are counted. A disadvantage of this method is that it cannot account for errors (such as double counting), especially when the census is spread over several days. This method would not be preferred for large areas where there are different terrains and habitats. Much more resources will be called for, which often makes the entire exercise prohibitively expensive. Hence this method, on its own, will not be practically applicable for an island wide census of elephants in Sri Lanka.

Pic: Srilal Miththapala

Sampling
The alternative is to count in a part of the area only, by conducting a number of sample counts. The cumulative sample counts can then be extrapolated to cover the entire area to estimate the total population. However, such sample counts have to be skillfully and scientifically planned and conducted, supported by good statistical analysis, if it is going to provide good and accurate data. The crucial assumption in sampling is that the individual sampling areas should be representative of the entire area being sampled.

Pic: Srilal Miththapala

Block Counting
As opposed to sampling counts, in a block count, observers, move through a selected area or block in a pre-determined pattern assuming that all elephants within this block can be seen, and thus double counting avoided.

The entire area under investigation is first divided up into the counting blocks. The total number of elephants in this area can then be ascertained by either counting all blocks or adding the figures together (i.e. total count) or the more preferred method of estimating from the figures obtained, by counting proportions of blocks only (sample).

Transects
Similar to the block concept, in this case transects or specific routes are used, around which the elephants are counted when sighted. The transects can be fixed width, (useful in open grasslands or scrub jungle where there is adequate lateral visibility) where sightings within a particular distance from the transect is only counted. On the other hand, open width transects involves counting of all sighted elephants, regardless of sighting distance. Obviously each of these techniques will need to supported with relevant mathematical models.

Indirect methods
In cases where density is low, or habitat visibility is poor, an indirect method of assessing numbers must be resorted to. This means that as opposed to direct sightings, some other parameter or signs are used to assess the number of animals in a given area. In the case of elephants the most popular and effective indirect method of assessment is dung counts.

Elephants eat a large quantity of vegetation (some 200 kgs a day) and have a relatively poor digestion system ( only some 40% is processed in the stomach). Consequently elephants defecate some 6-8 times a day, leaving behind a trail of large boluses of dung. To scientists’ these dung piles are a storehouse of information. Apart from the more obvious DNA information and health of the animal, it can also give an indication of the elephant movement patterns and abundance.

Pic: Srilal Miththapala

Therefore in theory it is possible to estimate population size from dung counts, if we know defecation rates and rate of decomposition of the dung. Sample blocks are planned out, and all dung found within that block is counted, and composition and status (how big, how old etc.) noted, from which, using mathematical techniques and proper assumptions, population estimates are arrived at. In practice this is not easy to establish reliably, and this method is not recommended for total population estimation. It is more preferred for analysis of trends.

General requirements of a census
The optimum time to carry out the census should be decided when the elephants will be accessible better. Normally, the height of the dry season is best, because the elephants during this period elephants would access water holes. On the other hand if it is a wildlife park, high tourist seasons would be best excluded when conducting the census.

Given the current distribution pattern of Sri Lankan elephants in the wild, perhaps a combination of direct and indirect counting should be carried out. In some of the wildlife parks where visibility is good, elephants are relatively more accustomed to people, where perhaps direct counting procedures may be suitable. However, there will be vast areas where indirect methods will have to be used. Also August, when the census is to be conducted, is the dry season in the North-Eastern region, where there is greater elephant abundance, which perhaps is good timing.

Staffing
Whatever techniques or methods are used, a census of the entire island would require sufficient trained and dependable staff. A properly planned organizational structure will have to be put in place, with separate teams to work under team leaders. Needless to say the entire team must be well accounted with techniques going to be used.

Logistics
During the period of census, there will have to be a major logistics programme in place, to provide the very large number of resource personnel out in the field with adequate food, water, transport and other resources. Effective communication systems have to be set up, with regional and central command centers, to coordinate activities and for collecting of data. After the actual census, considerable collation and analysis of the data will have to be carried out, before a final conclusion can be arrived at.

Past data and information about elephant ranging and abundance should be taken into account when planning out the sample areas to be counted. Given the scarcity of such information (except once again the work done by individual researchers such as Dr Prithiviraj Fernando and Dr Devaka Weerakoon) this will be a daunting task

In the case of Sri Lanka, definitely some areas will have to be counted under sampling techniques and careful planning and expert input will have to be obtained. In addition analysis of the information, post count, is also very vital. Proper standard deviations, error factors and confidence limits, plus sampling size will have to be carefully calculated and decided on.

It is important therefore that the DWLC engage as many experts into the planning process. There is a wealth of knowledge in the hands of private individuals, who are really the only ones carrying out whatever elephant research that is going on in Sri Lanka.

No amount of theoretical knowledge will of course ever substitute for real-life, field experience in planning and executing such a complex and large scale project. And it is a well-known fact that only a very few elephant censuses have been conducted in Sri Lanka, and many of the results arrived at, has been, in fact, questionable. So there is no question that local field experience is quite limited in this area. Therefore we should obtain suitable expertise from abroad, the best being from India, where conditions would be very similar to Sri Lanka.

If all these precautions are taken, with proper and extensive planning, backed by good scientific support, both public and private, then the proposed elephant census would be one of the most important interventions undertaken by the DWLC in the recent past, that would help planning of future wild life management strategies.

More importantly it can set the stage for a healthy private-public sector partnership, which will be of great significance and importance towards addressing the complex human elephant conflict.

###

The writer is a senior tourism professional, and was the former Chief Executive Officer of Serendib Leisure Management Ltd and immediate past President of the Tourist Hotels Association of Sri Lanka (THASL). He also served on the board of the Sri Lanka Institute of Tourism & Hospitality Management. He is now attached to the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce as Project Director of the Greening Hotels SWITCH ASIA project. He is a keen Environmentalist and Wildlife Enthusiast

Furrowed brows & dusty roads in Lao(s) (& some very handsome eles too).

2011-03-07T03:16:00Z

One of the reasons I need a new passport (aside from the obvious need to change identity & slip away before anyone pins this on me) is that some of my favourite neighbours live in a country that requires me to get a page-filling visa every time I visit...

...& visit I have, for work & for pleasure, for better & for worse, for richer & for poorer (bloody poorer that's a fact) and also to fill these here pages. I've lost count of the number of times I've been across to Laos in the past few years (counting visas would give me an answer, of course, but let's just stick with poetic license), often to visit the projects of our friends in Elefantasia and three times to visit their showcase event the Lao Elephant Festival.

The previous couple of visits have been to the elephant town of Hong Sa - when we first went foreigners had to take a boat for two days on the Mekong just to get to the one-taxi town that would see you up into the mountains where the elephants hang out - this year's extravaganza was in a town on the Mekong called Paklay, newly accessible from Thailand through Loei province. Knowing how much I love to see my old blue Toyota kicking up dust, you surely know that we piled the car full of Lung Lord, our chief mahout, Dr Cherry, our vet and off we set through the dry (& burning) forests of Northern Thailand 'til we got to this border crossing so remote that, on the Laos side, they took an hour to translate my name into Lao and type it, single fingered, into the computer.

On the face of it this was another great event working on the principle that, if you can't move the people to the elephants you move the elephants to the people. All the usual elements were there, some fifty odd elephants participating in the pageantry, elephant of the year contests, parades, logging demonstrations, blessing ceremonies, mass bathing (of elephants) in the Lay river; all-in-all a celebration of the mahouts' lives and their lifestyle with, this being an Elefantasia event, a lot of grass roots conservation messages woven into the speeches by Governors and other dignitaries.

We had dinner with an international conference of Human Elephant Conflict experts from around the range states, using the attraction of domestic elephants to bring together the gurus who are on the front line of saving the species. Well, you know that ticks the box next to one of our biggest goals too - we like this place, these people & the things we can do!

A celebration of Laos entertainment and lifestyle, beer (well, with their universal marketing, Beer Laos has become synonymous with the Democratic Republic itself - no complaints here) with a huge festival atmosphere coupled with, stalls, games, tents from the tourism departments of the various different provinces highlighting the eco-tourism opportunities to be had for those with our wanderlust but a little more time, the World Wild Fund for Nature (which I'm sure you still call the World Wildlife Fund) had a big tent and prize giving quizzes for school kids who could answer simple questions about the preservation of the country's natural resources - to top it all (& to make Thai folks jealous) the mobile phone speed in this town where they'd not yet sealed the roads was hovering between 3 & 3.5G.

...great to see a CITES message at the border....

...one reason I love Lao roads...

...but once you get there you realise Paklay has become an elephant town for the weekend...

...get 'em young, elephants everywhere....

...the main parade passes by...

...card carrying members?...

...the elephant blessing ceremony, a Bai Sri, the white string conveys the blessings...

..the Lao Mobile Elephant clinic sponsored & run by Elefantasia as well as the Elephant Umbrella Fund (the festival was also a great chance to catch up with Connie)...

...at the World Wild Fund for Nature tent school kids were tested on their conservation knowledge; prizes, kids, prizes...

...& the elephant of the year, a very handsome tuskless bull.

So a great time was had by all, the elephants got a weekend or more off from their normal job, dragging huge (but ever diminishing) logs through the forest, the millions of local folks (& not a few intrepid travellers) got a chance to meet elephants, see human circus acts and, to top it all, the conservation groups got a chance to drip feed ideas into the madding throng.

But the eagle eyed among you will have noticed something, especially those of you who regularly peruse these pages and know that I don't throw away words easily. Somewhere up there, above the photographs there is a little phrase, added quietly, so subtly you may not have noticed it, there are five little words 'On the face of it'.

It is one of the problems of my trade that the deeper I seem to get into it the more I seem to look beyond the face of what's going one - oh how I long for the days when I could just enjoy things for their own sake!

There was something else here that had not been seen before, something new to Laos, there were baby elephants (& given that Elefantasia has been trying to encourage breeding this should be a good thing, right?).

Well, not quite, the baby elephants here were, for the first time, performing a show - well, there's nothing wrong with a show if producing baby elephants is your goal, you have to let them have an income (though what acts should be permitted and which are harmful is a muddy line that is largely ignored in the name of commerce) and I have to admit I was disappointed to see the Thai experience imported wholesale (with it's loud music and garish costumes): a loss of innocence. I didn't see them myself but I'm told that there was street begging going on late at night in the back-packer bars and around the human circus.

It seems that the commercialism of babies has crossed the border and poor old Laos folks faced with the Thai dilemma all of a sudden, if you want babies (IF you want babies?!) you have to make the proposition attractive to the mahouts, but if it becomes too attractive, well, you end up encouraging behaviour that is not healthy for the elephants or mahouts themselves.

For a final word I'll leave the stage to Sebastien Duffilot of Elefantasia, as he makes clear, this was not his doing nor that of his organisation - an unwanted (but unfortunately lucrative) add on to a conservation festival...

______________________

By ElefantAsia

Vientiane, February 25th, 2011

Laos has recently had its 5th annual Elephant Festival. Held each February in the Sayaboury Province, this year’s festival took place in the city of Paklay. Thousands of national and international visitors attended the three-day event, with the provincial tourism department estimating 26 billion kip (USD$ 3,250,000) was injected into the local economy over the festival period.

Each year the coordination of the Elephant Festival is undertaken by the Elephant Festival Organising Committee. This committee includes the Sayaboury provincial government, the Lao National Tourism Administration, the Host District government (Paklay District in 2011) and ElefantAsia non-profit organisation. ElefantAsia acts as advisers for the festival. This is achieved by supplying technical direction to provincial and district bodies, coordinating elephant festival activities, logistics, event management and implementation. ElefantAsia can advise and support other members of the Elephant Festival Organising Committee but has no official capacity to enforce complete management over the Lao Elephant Festival.

This year’s festival saw the inclusion of 10 elephants performing circus tricks such as basketball, handstands, bowling and dancing. Elephants as young as two were observed performing these activities. A Thai national had been hired to teach circus tricks to the elephants. All 10 elephants were due to be sent to work in a Chinese circus. This contract has since been cancelled yet circus training and shows are continuing to occur. Residing from the remote Thongmixay District of Sayaboury, these are Lao’s first ever circus elephants.

Despite ElefantAsia voicing severe dissatisfaction of the use of circus elephants at the Elephant Festival, ElefantAsia had no control over their attendance. Other members of the Elephant Festival Organising Committee gave approval to use the circus elephants for the entertainment of officials.

ElefantAsia wishes to convey their utmost disappointment and condemnation of the practice of training elephants for human entertainment purposes. Training elephants to perform tricks is physically cruel, with open head wounds apparent on several of the circus elephants. Not only are elephants physically harmed during circus training, but psychological damage is also inflicted. Physical provocation of such training teaches elephants to be afraid of humans, leading to very stressful and dangerous conditions for both elephants and people.

While elephants have been trained and used by humans for centuries in Laos, training for small-scale logging or village work is remarkably different to that of circus performances. Traditional training methods involve a high level of verbal commands, comparable to a sheepdog trained to muster sheep. Some physical control is required however this is more for steering purposes than actual commanding. Circus training requires long and intense periods of mental concentration by the elephant, while being physically punished if not understanding the complex manoeuvres expected of them. Physical training is the preferred method used by circus trainers, as negative reinforcement using pain makes an animal learn faster than verbal commands using positive reinforcement. Physical commanding does not take into consideration the animal’s temperament, stress or emotional state.

Not only is circus performing cruel and unnatural but sets up a cycle of employment that can lead to a lifetime of poverty and stress for the elephant. Take the elephants working on the streets of Bangkok as an example of this. A two-year old calf was observed at the Lao Elephant Festival wandering the busy streets of Paklay late at night begging for money. Its mahouts were holding pieces of wood containing nails, ensuring the calf performed tricks suitably. Blood was seen on the faces of some of the circus elephants. None of the circus elephants working at night had reflectors on them, leading to the risk of accident by an oncoming car or motorcycle. Instead of resting in the local forests at night like the other elephants attending the festival, the circus elephants were forced to work late into the night, stepping on broken glass and surrounded by extremely loud music. Their stress levels must have been severe.

ElefantAsia was the original creator of the Elephant Festival and will lobby for these elephants to stop circus performing and to never perform at future Elephant Festivals. The Elephant Festival’s purpose is to raise awareness of the need to conserve and protect Asian elephants in Laos, as highlighted by Sayaboury Governor Dr. Lien Thikeo during the opening ceremony. It is not a platform to showcase inhumane circus tricks taught to elephants by international investors wishing to make money. The training of circus elephants in Laos is extremely regrettable and an action ElefantAsia neither endorses nor will ignore. Lao cultural heritage is not associated with such acts. Training elephants for circus use should not be forced upon vulnerable communities under the guise of making easy money.

ElefantAsia will continue to perform veterinary treatments, education programs and conservation measures to elephants and communities in Laos. Campaigns will now include educating owners on the disadvantages of putting their elephants into a circus environment. The exploitation of elephants and elephant owners for circus use is unacceptable in the Land of a Million Elephants.

Do not hesitate to write us to show your concern and discontent!

Young elephant performing tricks at Annual Elephant Festival in Paklay, 2011

I fought the law and... (well actually, has anyone read what the law says?)

2011-02-17T00:47:00Z

In the past we have talked at some length about the need for an elephant law in Thailand, I have stated to you, bold faced, that for the domestic version of the beast there is no protection except an aging draught animal law designed mainly to stop your elephant being stolen - under this law the ele is an asset like any other piece of machinery.

Sure though I was of the point (& you know me, if I can throw in a caveat I will) there was always a little confusion: if my elephants are completely at my mercy why does the law interfere if I need to move an elephant? Well, it turns out that there is a livestock law aimed at disease prevention which forces me, if I am to move an elephant from one province to another, to get signatures from both the vet at origin and the (local livestock not the one under my employ) vet here that the animal is fit to travel, that the destination exists and the route to be used (even the truck each elephant will travel on, with number plate & driver's I.D.).

Though this law applies equally to buffalo it seems a useful piece of legislation.

Another niggling, nagging doubt has always been there: as many international elephant watchers know, sometime about ten years ago a video was shot of an elephant being trained in what was called a 'traditional' fashion, a particularly brutal method designed for taking a wild elephant whose only experience to date with humans has been to run from them & quickly, efficiently (though efficiency is arguable given a reported 25% mortality rate) turn them into a useful work tool - this is the video still shown today and erroneously claimed to be the norm for elephant training; again we've discussed at length that it is certainly not & never has been the norm for domestic born elephants (who'd lose 25% of their assets?), was never part of the tradition of Thailand's most prolific historical elephant catchers, the Guay from Surin & may even have been stamped out already (thanks largely to the video takers).

But we're not here to rehash old arguments - the Government response to the video was swift to point out that this form of training was already illegal in 2001 and, somewhat haughtily (though technically correctly), pointed out that instead of video'ing it was the video'ers duty to stop the process making them legally culpable.

The doubt though was always, if, as I told you, there was no legislation in Thailand to prevent animal cruelty, under which law would it be illegal to torture an elephant into submission?

Weeeelllllll, not being very bright myself, one trick I learn in helping our little Foundation punch above it's weight is to surround ourselves with young & clever bright young things, people with whom I can share my niggling doubts and an internet connection and leave to uncover the truth. Step forward Australian vet Jennifer Urwin who found the following for us:

...the truth is, in her penal code (at least in 2003, the most up-to-date translation I could find), Thailand has a couple of clauses directly related to animal cruelty:

Under the Petty Offences book, Section 381 reads:

'Whoever, cruelly ill-treats or kills an animal with unnecessary sufferings, shall be punished with imprisonment not exceeding one month or fined not exceeding one thousand Baht, or both.'

While Section 382 reads:

'Whoever, overworking the animal unreasonably or using it to do unsuitable work on account of it to be ill, old or young, shall be imprisoned not out of one month [s.i.c.] or fined not out of one thousand [s.i.(a.)c.] Baht, or both'

...& Section 377 reads:

'Whoever, having in his care a ferocious or vicious animal, allows it to wander about alone in a manner likely to cause injury to a person or things, shall be punished with imprisonment not exceeding one month or fined not exceeding one thousand Baht, or both.'

Now, I know what you're thinking, you're about to ask me how I could be writing in defence of the Thai legal system when they offer such paltry fines and call animal cruelty a petty offence? Well, these things are relative, consider the fine in Section 376, just above the one where they'll lock me up for letting ferocious Lynchee loose on the world: for someone who 'unnecessarily fires a gun in town or village' or anywhere where there is a 'conglomerate of people' - the maximum fine is 500 baht and the prison sentence is ten days and it is still a Petty Offence.

Thinking about it from the perspective of a wealthy businessman the penalties do seem small, though everyone has to be inconvenienced by a month in jail I'd have thought, but from the perspective of a mahout, most of whom aren't working here & well paid, 1,000 baht has to hurt (let's say the average wage in Thailand is between 4 - 5,000 baht - so a week's wages). Though it is true that, before Chang Yim helped to get them off the Bangkok streets the numbers quoted as earned by street mahouts are much higher - something close to an order of magnitude so. Even then, a month in jail and the hiring of another mahout to look after your elephant - getting caught being cruel would still be costly, more so, being fined 1,000 baht on a nightly basis for a month may not bankrupt you but it has to make your work distinctly less profitable.

So, if the law, as it stands could be a deterrent, why isn't it?

I asked the Thai Animal Guardians Association who have recently drafted a stricter & specific animal cruelty law, currently waiting to go before parliament (&, about to expire if not seen soon) & they replied to the effect that the current fines were not a deterrent specifically to street walking babies as more money could be made and that the courts were usually unwilling to imprison poor folks whose only source of income came through work (even if that work were, on the books, illegal).

So, while I think a specific animal cruelty law is necessary (I think a specific elephant law is necessary - the, slghtly knee jerk, specific street elephant begging in Bangkok laws seem to have worked (though my intelligence claims they're creeping back in)) and would urge you to help AGA in their endeavours to have theirs written into law I also think that we ought to look into reasons why the current statute isn't working - street begging aside, acts of outright cruelty to elephants are few and far enough between that the clauses outlined above could be a useful tool to force abusive mahouts/businessmen to mend their ways without rewarding them for their actions by buying their elephant.

Might we not make a start by getting definitions of "too young", "too old", "over work" set into precedent and then helping the police to enforce the existing law. Theoretically, once we have definitions we can educate our local bobbys, the boys in brown, as to what these definitions are and help them take action.

Next time, before we condemn or threaten to boycott the country and all operators for lack of laws, wouldn't it be interesting to think about being able to call the police?

Too many elephants? (have they bitten off more than they can chew)

2011-02-01T00:27:00Z

I'm standing in a field, more of a flat plane, dotted with shelters, those with walls for humans, those without for something larger & less intent on privacy, with a few honourable exceptions - built early on by generous donation - there is little distinction, other than the walls and a floor, between the two. They are roughly the same height & made of whatever materials seemed to be at hand.

In the wild (which we are not) one way to count elephants (or any beings) is a line transect, you draw a line on the map and attempt to follow it (or, in ideal cases, tell someone else to follow it over vertical cliffs, through raging torrents & don't let them stray even to avoid charging tigers) counting the amount & density of elephant sign along the random kilometer that you walk. In this method you then look at the number of similar kilometers in the piece of habitat you are looking at and bingo (or not, statistics being what they are) you have an idea (or a concrete number if your politician boss needs to hold a press conference) of how many wild elephants you have in the whole area (which, for press purposes often has to be more than it was last year).

In estimating the number of elephants on this open plane, though, I adopt a different method (not quite so serious as I've already been told how many elephants there are), I pick a random spot and I rotate myself through 360 degrees, counting the elephants I see.

No matter where I place myself I see between 18 - 23 elephants. The official total for the plane is 190-something and this is borne out by the 'Roberts Counting Method' (patent pending). Whichever way you crumble your cookie, there are a lot of elephants here, a lot of mahouts and a lot of their families too.

Now you know me by now, you know the thrill I get at being in an elephant town, the sort of town where you see an elephant on it's way to graze, or carrying some firewood, or just following it's mahout when you first drive down the main street. The sort of town where you sit on your host's verandah drinking your early morning sweetened instant coffee from a glass and the neighbour is preparing his elephant for a day of work in the misty chill of his front yard, the sort of town where every house has some sort of elephant equipment tucked away beneath the eaves, where every chair seems to be an elephant bench. I get a special thrill being around this many elephants, to be at the source.

The town I am in when I conduct my little counting experiment is a special one for me, home to most of my mahouts and elephants, it is Ta Klang near Surin in North East Thailand.

Even given the special relationship we've built with this town (for one reason or another the t-shirts we give out to mahout visitors and family seem to be the number one fashion item - we didn't tell them we were coming so I have to guess, ego to the fore, that this is the case year round) I can't help but feel some unease at the number of elephants here.

I have to wonder if, when earlier this year, the Governor of Bangkok & the Governor of Surin shook hands and agreed a deal to get the elephants off the mean streets that the former is responsible for keeping clean, they realised quite what they had agreed to do. Whether they realised quite how many elephants there were out there & how many other elephants might appear out of the mist when they agreed a good deal to help the mahouts live in their home village.

200 elephants is a lot of elephants - & there are more coming: you put boys & girls together, take away their toys, you get babies.

Initially the whole place felt like a refugee camp for elephants.

There can be no doubt that their Excellencies have been enormously successful in the task they set themselves, they've answered their critics, both Thai and International who cried 'GET THE ELEPHANTS OFF THE STREETS'. Funny, no-one from the critic's camp really thought, what next?

Well, what next? Well, I know (though I didn't catch up with him) Alex from The Surin Project is in Ta Klang trying to help, giving four or five or six elephants, more if he can, something to do; some off-the-chain time & trying to address the enormous fodder supply issues that one feels are about to crop up - on the interminable drive up from Bangkok (shorter than the drive from the Golden Triangle but no chance of wild elephants, no forests, no interesting bendy bits) we were held up by a million 20 kph sugarcane trucks but the elephant village wasn't their destination.

What next? The mahouts could be forgiven for asking too, everyone we spoke to was happy to be home, happy to be paid to stay in one place & stop running from the law but they all seemed a little perplexed as to what they were supposed to be doing there.

What next? We asked the manager, a man from an ancient mahouting family, a man whose surname (though not his first name) goes on a number of our monthly cheques to the guys who live with us.

Well, it turns out there are big plans, my initial concern that no-one is thinking about the future, so patronising, turned out to be wrong. Though the 200 elephants are currently on a relatively small area of land, something an order of magnitude larger has been set aside for them, allocations for fodder growing are drawn on the map, allocations for elephant forest and to bring in tourists for various different activities. The timeline's a little vague but the plans are there.

I went to bed a happier elephant boy after the chat with Mr Salangam, always glad to hear of a long term plan, dreaming of ways in which we might be able to help them keep the elephants there, keep the faith of the mahouts until the plans are realised.

Despite the long term thinking that appears to be being crafted by the folks down there I'm still a little wary of unbridled (or perhaps, more properly, bridled but un-coordinated) breeding, is the long term thinking 70 - 80 years long?

Regular readers will know the drive to create more elephants troubles me on all fronts and is certainly not Ta Klang's immediate problem, interestingly when I told K. Sivaporn of the Reintroduction Foundation of my worries later he couldn't share them, confident that he will, in time, have enough forest to release them into and have perfected the technique for doing so - perhaps the only person I've spoken to whose organisational plans last the lifetime of an elephant and more. I think it is safe to say, though, that the current spate of breeding is not being done with this future in mind, at least at a mahout level.

I'll leave the final quote to Mr Salangam, when we raised concerns about the type of elephant entertainment currently on offer to bring the, mainly local (one of Ta Klang's glories but financial problems is that it is a long way from, well, anywhere) tourists currently bringing in much needed income. He said: "Yes, I know, many people who look after thirty elephants like you, & some who look after none at all, have come to me and said this, my answer is the same to you as it is to them: you come here, look after 190 elephants for awhile and then tell me how to do it better".

Can't argue with that.

You know you're in an elephant town when there's a tusker behind the larb shop.

Lung Buddha's corner

Lots of elephants.

...could the cuteness of baby elephants be one reason for all the breeding? Certainly their (unfathomable to me) huge sale price and perhaps (something we'd be guilty of) the payments being on a 'per elephant' basis may also be a factor.

...but does anyone know what life will be like for them in 70 years? We hope K. Sivaporn is right & they can have a life in a rejuvenated forest.

...there is room here, enough for musth bulls.

Big plans!

A gratuitous photo of our very own (young) Pumpui's father who now lives full time in Ta Klang.

Blowing away the mists of time in search of the old language.

2011-01-17T00:56:00Z

I'm going to ask you, for a moment, to plug yourself into the visual cortex of a Crested Serpent Eagle, you're cruising at altitude over a valley in the far North of Thailand, at the risk of missing your strike I would like you to take in the scene below you.

I'd like you to ignore the fire and the thatched rooves, the assembled old men and children, stop, if you can, thinking about the chickens.

Concentrate on the four people sitting on the mat, they're an odd bunch and therefore perhaps the most interesting (I notice that, having asked you to be a bird of prey, you can't take your mind off the chickens so perhaps you can now come to earth and observe - pay attention!).

Of the four one is emphasising his point with an outstretched finger, he is talking louder than the others because he is slightly deaf in one ear, perhaps the only concession his body and mind seem to have made to his eighty-two years, he's the man the others have come to learn from, a man born under an absolute monarchy, at a time when his country was covered in forest, a man born and raised for one calling, a calling that he hasn't been able to follow for more than forty years, the latter half, now, of his life. The loss of his calling may have been through outside interference (as he sees it) but definitely was not through loss of skills or fitness. Though his calling is a dangerous one and his body isn't what it was, he'd go tomorrow if he could.

Next to him is a younger man of the same trade, we can say younger as there are no older left, now in his late forties he reached maturity (and, in those days, fourteen was considered maturity) after the calling of his people had been outlawed. The younger man has grown up watching and living the transition of his people, has watched the world change and it is fair to say that, as befits his skill and intelligence, he has had a good life and has made good of it. He has learned from and listened to the older man (and those even older that have now passed) since he was a child, it is hard to say if he regrets the passing of the calling of his people as his life in the transition, tough though it has been, has turned out well.

Sitting diagonally across from this man, talking into the older man's good ear, is the youngest of three, not of the people but from the same country, born in the capital city. She is the only lady on the mat, not that her sex matters more than her youth and her interest in the subject, but I've asked you to pay attention so I'm sure you'd notice this and ask. Though having no link to the calling of the older man's people by birth she has chosen to make some of their problems her own for the sake of the creature involved at first, and as time progressed, for the people that surround them.

The fourth person on the mat is a foreigner and has no right to be there but since it was his idea, he signs the cheques and he was the one that borrowed the voice recorder they have to let him be there or he'd throw one of his famous tantrums.

The fourth, being the least interesting, is the first I'll identify. He types as you read.

The young lady is Dr Cherry, our vet, here to bring the Thai language to the table as well as answer her own questions.

The younger of the older men is our Chief Mahout, Lung Lord, a lifelong elephant raiser and carer, a man who can sing elephants to sitting position and a man that can speak to the older fellow in the language he grew up with, an interesting language, pasar suay, but not the one we're interested in.

The older man is Mor Meu, the oldest surviving and most prolific elephant catcher in Thailand, a man who's calling, as we've learned in a week of interviews for the Elephant Spirits movie, is the catching of elephants, for the forty years since he was prevented from following this calling he has, like Lung Lord, cared for elephants but there is no doubt he feels catching them was what he was born for.

But this is personal for the foreigner, this isn't part of the movie, this is based on a story he heard a long time ago and a chance to try something that has never been done before (to the best of his knowledge): to record a language that hasn't been spoken in action in forty years.

He aims to record the so called spirit or forest language of the elephant catchers: the rumour goes that all elephant catching peoples have the tradition of a language used only in the forest when catching elephants, known only to a select band of initiates, a language designed to confuse the spirits enough that they don't warn the elephants of this band of biped's intentions.

It is a rumour that has fascinated him for years.

Away from the scene and into the first person.....

With Mor Meu on site and in full flow we had a chance to confirm one part of the rumour, the language exists, it was written by the first Khru Ba Yai, elephant catcher of the Guay tribe, Phra Mor Tao, who also gave the tiger his stripes - these stories are part of the movie so I'll leave them alone for now and suffice to say that the language has descended to its last active speaker from the time of myths.

So, how do you go about recording a language? As you'd expect I have no idea, I'm just the elephant boy, and so I'm ashamed to report that, through my incompetence, the romantic scene described above quickly descended into comedy; perhaps culminating in my asking a wise older gentleman to tell us, in a language that was designed for the catching of elephants in sweltering jungles the word for 'snow'.

Were he not a gentleman he'd have sworn at me then, the look I got reminded me of my idiocy (in my defence, all my requests to linguists for protocols to perform the task I set my self had fallen on deaf ears - ironic for linguists - so I was stuck with a list of words that a proper scientist called Richard Johnston had used some time in the 1960's to try and record both older men's home language of Suay - the so called Swadesh 200 word list).

The plan had been that I would say a word in English, Dr Cherry would say it in Thai, Lung Lord would say it in Suay and Mor Meu would impart the Spirit Language. Suffice to say after two hours of laughter and general confirmation of the stupidity of foreigners we got about 180 words of English, 150 words of Thai, 120 words of Suay and, remarkably, 65 words of the spirit language.

Mor Meu was at pains to point out, the reason for the outstretched finger in the first paragraph, that the language must not be spoken frivolously, if he was to allow us to record it it must not be mis-used (although he later told us how to say 'the girls are beautiful'). So I won't tell you what we learned, except to say that it appears to be distinct from any of the local languages and that, now we have the recording my job is to find some anthropological linguists to see if we can learn more about these amazing people.

I have no idea if what we got is enough to define a language but it was enough to confirm part of a rumour and, perhaps more important, four people from different backgrounds and points around the globe had two hours of fun. As the proper scientists who have to listen to the tape may find out, I wouldn't be surprised if the whole thing is lost in laughter.

Large Legal Loopholes Lead to Leniently Levying Lawmakers (education must be key)

2011-01-04T00:35:00Z

Living in a world of oft scrubbed elephants you would think I'd be more conscious than most that, in life, everything comes in different shades of grey. Perhaps I am, perhaps, like all good craftsmen I should blame my tools; the tool in question (which is also to blame for the infrequency of missives to these pages) being the social networking tool, Twitter, where daily rants in shades of black or white (the 140 characters it allows you leave no space for caveats, greys or maybes) including my own can be found at @elehelp.

So it was when a story broke of a Thai lady arrested smuggling ivory out of Kenya some time last week, I scanned it quickly & wrote a line or so praising the customs guys and decrying the continued and organised poaching of African elephants. A few days later the story came to a conclusion and mentioned that the lady had, for her troubles & arrest, earned a fine of just under US$500.

It was generally agreed that this was hardly a deterrent to someone, we assumed, involved in the multi-million dollar business of ivory smuggling. How can we possibly expect to stop the ivory poaching if the worst you can expect to suffer when caught, seemingly red handed, is a confiscation, a fine that costs less than the air ticket & a slap on the wrist.

But then I actually read the piece beneath the headline and saw her defence, while she was found guilty of the crime for which she was arrested, her story was plausible enough to cast doubt that she was part of an international gang bent on the destruction of elephants, or even that she was a duped mule.

Her story went like this: She is a Thai lady married to a Mozambican man, heading home to Thailand for the holidays and transiting through Kenya, in Mozambique it is legal to buy and sell ivory on the street, as it is in Thailand so it hadn't occurred to her that it may be illegal to transfer ivory from one country to another, nor that Kenya might get so stressed out about people removing parts of one of it's protected species.

Now (& this may come as a surprise to you), I don't claim to be an expert on Mozambican law, I have no idea how it can be legal to buy and sell ivory in Mozambique - either elephants are not a protected species there (?) or, or what? - but in Thailand it is legal to buy and sell ivory IF the ivory has been harvested from a Thai domestic elephant.

Trouble is, with the Thai loophole, you have no way of knowing (short of expensive & time consuming DNA tests) whether an ivory piece you look at is carved from Pang Nelly's tusk, pared away by a perhaps loving mahout in order to make some cash & keep his ele off the street (&, as usual, I romanticise, the bodies of dead tuskers are often bought purely for their tusks), whether it is from a poached wild Thai elephant or whether it is the tusk of a once majestic African beast.

I know why the Thai loophole exists, there is a perfectly legal, traditional trade of ivory carvers that are considered an integral part of Thai culture who could, if we were living in a world where trade could be controlled and status wasn't assumed to be confirmed by the keeping of bits of dead animal, continue their trade without harming a single elephant. Thai lawmakers are reluctant to persecute these artisans when it is quite possible for them to exist and fill their niche in Thai culture without harming the situation - if only we'd stop buying all would be OK.

Still, while the loophole exists, there is a perfect way for smugglers & poachers to 'launder' smuggled African ivory and there is a chance that innocent-of-poaching people can drive a trade in African trinkets that drives a trade in poaching.

While those of us that live with elephants and pontificate, or those of you who read the rants of we pontificators, might find it hard to believe there is anyone out there who doesn't know of that huge, multi-headed, complexly written and composed CITES convention with it's ever changing thoughts on different subjects and it's intensely political, horse trading (figurative of course, literal horse trading may find them having to arrest themselves) over which appendix each species should fall into.

The vast majority of the world, it seems, doesn't.

Personally I can't fault the following logic: if it is legal to buy at home and it is legal to buy (but perhaps more expensive) at Granny's house across the world why on earth wouldn't it be legal to take it home and give it to Granny?

In this case I am reminded of a Laos lady arrested in the US early last year, a lady with far less benefit of the doubt that our original protagonist - who pleaded guilty of breaking a law through ignorance of the existence of that law - this lady was arrested with 'medicinal' animal parts and, despite having had parts confiscated on entry during a previous trip, despite having been in receipt of a letter from the authorities explaining why bringing endangered species parts into the country was illegal and why the previous confiscation had been made, despite getting caught again with animal parts and, this time, arrested - despite all of this, she found it very hard to plead guilty, grudgingly she admitted that she had broken a law but, according to the news reports, could not see how, despite knowledge of the existence of the law, something her family had been doing for generations (presumably back home) could be a crime.

So while I applaud CITES efforts and I certainly think we should try and close our little loophole somehow, I think the key is education, we can do our bit by inviting Thai kids to join us in camp and giving them our little spiel, tell them how we feel, great efforts are being made by certain charities and celebrities with clout in consuming countries, perhaps it is time for Government and school systems to step in?

A CITES poster at Kunming, Yunnan, China airport - education in action!