News
India, Assam: Eye on the elephant
July 25, 2007, 4:18AM MT
By Sharon St. Joan
A look at captive elephants in northern India
A look at captive elephants in northern India
By Sharon St. Joan, Best Friends Network
Of the Kaziranga National Park, Suparna Ganguly writes, "It is set against a background of vast grasslands. The broad sweep of the River Brahmaputra, the low lying hills, the mudflats, and the swamps are ideal elephant country."
In February of 2006, Suparna Ganguly is there, in the state of Assam, to have a look at elephants. As the Vice President of CUPA, Compassion Unlimited Plus Action, Suparna spends her life helping animals--many of them are domestic. But elephants have found a special path to her heart.
As is the case for many people, both inside and outside India, elephants seem to represent all that is noble and majestic. To many Indian people, elephants are visible expressions of the god Ganesh, a god of great good fortune and of overcoming obstacles. It is somehow doubly sad, that creatures of such innate dignity can be mistreated or abused. It seems in some way, particularly wrong--a sentiment echoed in the title of a book that CUPA has published about elephants, "Gods in Chains". The book gives a remarkable inside view of the true situation of captive elephants. Please see the end of this article, for a link to the website on which this book is available.
Suparna spent many months traveling throughout India, crisscrossing this diverse land. Five days in February 2006 were spent in Assam at two national parks-- Kaziranga National Park and Manas Elephant Camp. Recently, Suparna was kind enough to share with us some of her thoughts and observations of this memorable trip.
Expedition to Assam
The leader of the expedition, Surendra Verma, is with the ANCF (the Asian Nature Conservation Fund. He is the Chief Investigator of the All-India Captive Elephant and Mahout (Handler) Project.
The two other team members are Savitha Nagabhushan, who is a brilliant photographer and Managing Committee Member of CUPA, and Brindha Nandakumar, an attorney and CUPA trustee, who fights many of the legal cases that CUPA takes on, on behalf of animals.
In addition to visiting the two national parks, the group visits some private elephant owners and an elephant trader. They want to see how difficult or easy it may be to purchase a juvenile elephant. The group takes on the guise of being visitors from Kerala, in the far south of India, who'd like to buy a young female elephant. Unfortunately, they discover that purchasing the elephant would have been all too easy.
Later, Suparna observes that "All captive elephants are very vulnerable to the black market trade."
Sadly, the usual source of young elephants being traded is illegal capture from the wild. In order to capture the youngster from the wild, the mother is killed, or the calf separated by pits or trenches dug in the elephants’ area of movement or within their “corridors” – the known routes of the animals which they have used for centuries to migrate from one part to another, in search of food. Invariably, the calves fall into the pits and their families are driven off by humans to secure the baby for trade. Then the awful process of training starts – an elephant calf has only known affection and love from their family of sisters, mother and aunties.....the calf is exposed to the brutal methods of training by man, that will make him or her suitable for the tourist, temple and other captive trade. The young elephant may then be traded a number of times, often gradually making his/her way towards the south, to spend life in a crowded, oppressive city that bears no resemblance to her natural home in the forest.
In the majority of Indian states (Assam is an exception), elephants do not breed in captivity--for the same reason that wild creatures all over the earth are reluctant to breed in captivity. There is an instinctive wish not to bring offspring into a life in which conditions are not adequate.
As an exception, elephants do breed in the national parks in Assam.
On the one hand, this is a good indication that their lives are relatively comfortable and that they are well cared for. The downside, however, is that the birth of so many offspring leads to the calves being transported and then sold into undesirable conditions.
The micro-chipping initiative undertaken by the Assam State Government has been a complete failure, Suparna reports, adding,
"There is a lot of inter-state and inter-country (to Nepal) transportation of elephant calves by trucks and vans.
"The estimated number of captive elephants in Assam is approximately 2,000, with only 200 held in government camps like Kaziranga, where there are 53, Manas has 30, with Pavithra and three other camps holding approximately 117 elephants."
Life in the Kaziranga National Park
At the Kaziranga National Park, the elephants leave the camp during the day to go out foraging and browsing among the grasslands and nearby forest. These enchanting wild spaces are home to rhinos and tigers, as well as the elephants. Suparna relates that "the landscape is vast, and Kaziranga is known for its rolling grasslands and river."
Each elephant is accompanied by his or her mahout or handler. At the end of the day, as they return at sunset, the elephant, followed by her calves and ridden by her mahout, also carries on her back a load of long grass that has been cut for her by her mahout. She and her calves will munch on the long grass during the night. Eating is a serious business for elephants, since they require gargantuan quantities of food.
In the fading light they make their way back to the camp; an attendant smoothes out the ground where they will be tethered for the night. Suparna describes the night camping grounds, “Wherever elephants stay regularly, the area often resembles a football field, since they eat up everything in sight! So their natural feeding grounds have to be rotated if they depend on jungle forage for their main diet......."
Three months earlier, in November of 2005, the team visited the Indian State of Bihar--also in northern India, but south of Assam. Bihar was the first leg of their journey traveling throughout India in order to come to an understanding (with lots of facts, statistics, and observations to back it up) of the real circumstances of captive elephants in India.
Unlike the Assam trip, the Bihar trip had been trying at times. In general, the elephants they saw were for sale, at a huge animal market. The people they talked with were often traders, people who made their living from selling elephants.
In contrast, was this trip to Assam pleasant for them? And what was learned?
Suparna sums up their experience, “Elephant keeping in Assam is far more relaxed and far less intensive than in other states. The Assamese have a natural affinity for the animals...the landscape is ideal elephant country, lush and green. There are no temple rituals and other requirements for the animals...they were mostly used for the timber industry. Since that was stopped in 1996, by the Government of India, Assam is trying to sell off their elephants to the southern states, where, unfortunately, it is a commercial racket."
So, Assam offers, for the most part, an easier and more natural life for the captive elephants than they would find in other states. Yet even here, in this comparative peace, there can still be suffering. The captive elephants breed prolifically in the Government camps, since they are allowed to interact with wild elephants and no effort is made to prevent this which is good for the animals. However, many of the calves are sold to foreign zoos and private trade, to be sent away from their herd and their family; some die tragically along the way.
Here, as in the rest of India, the difficult lot of the elephant in captivity mandates that there is much to be done--as quickly as possible--in order to alleviate the suffering of these noble creatures.
The job of this expert, well-qualified team of investigators is to gather knowledge, information, and proof--to establish a body of evidence that can lead to a framework for real change for the elephants--so that their wellbeing may be protected and their lives happier.
What you can do
To learn more about elephants in captivity, you may purchase the book "Gods in Chains", by going to:
http://www.godsinchains.netfirms.com
Proceeds from the sale of this book support CUPA's on-going efforts to help elephants.
You may also visit the website of the Asian Nature Conservation Fund:
http://www.asiannature.org
To visit CUPA's website, please go to:
http://www.cupabangalore.org
Thank you!
Top photo: Savitha Nagabhushan - CUPA / elephant with calves