Over the past two decades, Sri Lankan wild elephants have faced serious conflict situations with humans owing to encroachment and the deteriorating elephant habitat and as a result the wild elephant population is decreasing at an alarming rate of almost three per week. Of course, politicians, who always seem to know more than the scientists and professionals, insist that the wild elephant population is growing, and that it now exceeds 7,000!

While we argue over this, there is a new crisis now looming, and this time with the captive ones. The recent event involving the removal of two baby elephants from the Pinnawela Elephant Orphanage (PEO) to be gifted to the Dalada Maligawa, has generated a hue and cry, and there are numerous newspaper articles and feedback from readers. This has highlighted a new problem regarding captive elephants, and their well being in captivity.

I also ‘joined the fray’, writing to The Island August 01 2009. I tried to focus on the behavioural aspects, and close knit family bonds of elephants, especially during their young days. Since then, the outcry has increased and the problem still remains unsolved.

Well, I thought it might be time now to address this problem related to captive elephants, without emotion, and in a more rational manner. I know I am delving into an area, which I am not very conversant with. Most of my work has been with wild elephants and not the tame ones. In fact, deep down, I honestly think that these magnificent animals should be roaming free in the wild and not kept in captivity at all, most often in deplorable conditions.

I have stood before the elephant enclosure at the Dehiwala Zoo and looked into the ‘soulless’, blank eyes of elephants, aimlessly swaying back and forth (which incidentally is a serious stress disorder called ‘Steriotypies’). One has only to look into the eyes of a wild elephant in one of the national parks, to see the difference. Looking into Walawe Raja’s eyes, (the magnificent tusker which visits the Uda Walawe National Park regularly), I have felt my adrenaline rush, and heart pound to see the profound energy and wild aggressiveness lying latent deep within. However, I know sadly that perhaps zoos are today a necessary evil.

Let me now reflect upon some of the issues and facts related to this problem.

1. Elephants and Sri Lankan Culture: Elephants have had a very close relationship with man and, in particular, with the Buddhist religion for centuries. Hence, there is no doubt that the elephant plays an important role in traditional Buddhist and Sri Lankan culture. So there may be a case for maintaining a stock of well looked after, trained elephant for use in religious activities.

2. Traditions: However, with modernisation and the inevitable changes taking place around us, sometimes it is difficult to blindly hold on to our old traditions. Although, traditions are important, it may be necessary, due to practical reasons, to slightly modify or change them to suit today’s world. Otherwise, there is a real danger that traditions will altogether die out. (My mind goes back to the famous film, Fiddler of the Roof, where Tevya goes through the trauma of gradually seeing and accepting the changing traditions of his old village, as his three young daughters find husbands on their own.)

Hence, although temples have had their own tame elephants in the past as tradition decrees, maybe now things have to change. Each and every temple cannot aspire to have elephants and, in the case of those which have had elephants, they cannot aspire to have as many animals as they used to have.

3. Capturing wild elephants: While the human elephant conflict (HEC) is certainly prevailing, in spite of laws governing the shooting of elephants, the ban on capturing elephants from the wild is is certainly being implemented well. So we can conclude that elephants are hardly ever captured from the wild now. So there is no possibility of replenishing the tame elephant stocks as in the days gone by. In fact, this has led to the gradual vanishing of the famous Panikkans, who were excellent elephant trappers.

4. Depleting population of captive elephants: The captive elephant population of Sri Lanka is therefore fast dwindling. I am told by my friends Jayantha Jayawardena, who has done some studies on captive elephants, that the numbers have come down from around 700 in the 1940s to fewer than 120 today, excluding the Pinnawela Elephant Orphanage (PEO) and the Uda Walawe Elephant Transit Home (UWETH). (Apparently the Dalada Maligawa could not muster more than 65 elephants for its magnificent world renowned perahera.

5. Pinnawela: The PEO (the less said about it , the better), which should have being the world’s leading captive elephant research and scientific establishment, has today degraded into a large ad hoc stable of elephants living in poor unhygienic conditions, growing in numbers and breeding haphazardly without any proper scientific intervention. A well-known wildlife expert Vasantha Nugegoda, recently told me, in his own inimitable way ‘What the .... are they doing at Pinnawela? The elephants are breeding like cattle all over’!

Due to the ongoing HEC (for which there is no clear solution evident in the near future), elephants will continue to be found abandoned or injured in the wild and bought either to the PEO or the UWETH. So, the ‘artificial herd’ at Pinnawela will keep growing, as its management struggles to cope and the facility continues to degrade.

6. Mahouts: Elephants, as I indicated in my article on August 01, have complex and closely-knit family ties and behavioural patterns. In a similar way, the bond between captive elephant and mahouts is also a very close and complex one. Therefore, if captive elephants are to be properly cared for in captivity, one needs good mahouts. ‘Mahouting’ is a ‘dying profession’ today. There was a study done recently (see below), which found that hardly any mahouts are passing down to their sons, their age old wisdom of dealing with elephants. It is no longer a worthwhile livelihood. So now it is more by a chance and a desire to find some form of work that mahouts are trained and ‘produced’.

Study of Mahouts in Sri Lanka

= 137 men (15 Buddhists/2 Hindus)

= Age between 20-25.

= 25% single, 25% married

=Most Mahouts change jobs frequently (This contradicts the ideal that a mahout spends his life with one elephant)

= 33% passed down from generation to generation.

= Monthly income Rs. 1,000/- to Rs. 5,250/-

=80% of Mahouts regularly drink alcohol (arrack)

I recently spoke to a mahout who looks after one of the most healthy and majestic tame elephants in Dambulla (‘Monika’) and I was surprised to hear that he has been a her mahout for only two years. Normally a mahout would spend his whole life with an elephant.

Therefore, if we are to successfully continue keeping tamed elephants, we need to ensure that there are enough well trained and devoted mahouts

7. An Elephant’s rights: Animals’ also have their rights. There are accepted codes of practice for the keeping of tame elephants, which include the ‘Five Freedoms’ a captive elephant must enjoy. They are the freedom from Malnutrition, Terminal physical discomfort, Injury and disease, Fear and stress, and the freedom to express normal patterns and behaviour.

Therefore, my conclusions and suggestions are as follows:

= There is definitely some serious need to maintain a stock of captive elephants for religious purposes.

= However, it is important that these animals are well looked after and a code of practice should be mandated and regulated.

= After careful selection, certain individuals in PEO can be earmarked for such use. They can then be trained and moulded into doing the tasks required of such captive elephants, under expert guidance of experienced mahouts.

= They should be transferred only when they are over 10 years or more to carefully selected establishments which can conform to the strict requirements of ensuring proper care and facilities for the elephant.

= The use of elephants in religious festivals also must be carefully regulated under a set of strict guidelines and controlled.

= Transportation of elephants in very stressful and dangerous manner should also be banned forthwith. (There was a news item on the death of an elephant whilst being transported in an open lorry after this year’s Kandy pageant).

= There should be an immediate effort to engage young village boys, who have a love for nature and wildlife, to be trained as mahouts under the few remaining senior mahouts. (A mahout training centre?) A proper system of welfare and support for those engaged in this livelihood must be provided to enable them to earn a fair wage. This must be carried out urgently in a structured manner.

= All captive elephants must be properly registered with details of their owners.

= Periodic follow up and training workshops must be organised for all captive elephant owners and strict penalties imposed on those who violate the code of practice.