Solving the Human-Elephant Conflict

By Rajitha Ratwatte

I am told that our new President is going to make another attempt to handle the burning issue of the human-elephant conflict (HEC). I have nothing but good wishes for his attempts and to those well qualified academics who have been appointed to a committee to handle the task. Engaging the groves of academe in the task is well and good, but please remember that practical experience in handling elephants is essential.

The following are extracts from my book; they deal with HEC as I see it and the hard problem of how we are going to reduce the wild elephant population of our country. It is undisputable that the Pearl has too many wild elephants and since reducing humans is not really possible; the elephant numbers have to come down.

Fortunately, we have a proven method, that needs some improvement for sure but is a real alternative to culling entire herds which is the method followed in the African countries. Happy reading dear readers!

“The human-elephant conflict in a country with a growing population and a level of politically patronized corruption that does not allow the implementation of conservation laws. A Chena cultivator stakes his future and the future of his entire family on a crop that gets raided by a marauding elephant a few days before harvest. The entire crop is ruined, and the farmer faces destitution. Can the farmer be blamed for trying his best to keep the elephants out? This leads to horrendous wounds on both sides and slow lingering death from gangrene or poison, for the elephants.

“The fact that the cultivation is inside a buffer zone of a national park or in some cases actually inside the demarcated zone for a national park can be blamed on local vote grabbing political patronage …. but what else is new!

In such a situation we have a real alternative to culling. We in this land that has been thrice blessed, have an ancient art that has been passed down for thousands of years. We know how to domesticate elephants and these elephants can support up to two families each. The people who look after elephants learn a trade, they are not unskilled workers and they have a life of dignity. If they take any pride in their craft the elephant too lives free of gunshot wounds, semi starvation and trauma and lack of sleep.

“Why are the politicians and the greenies blocking this? It can’t be lack of knowledge. Some of the leading politicians of this country come from families that have had elephants. Surely, even though their skills and aptitudes turned them towards one of the more questionable professions in this world, they have some memories? Anyone who has had the privilege of earning the trust of an elephant will never ever forget that. If they have never experienced it how can they speak with authority and make decisions if they don’t know the subject?”

Next is an extract from some actual trapping of elephants that I was privileged to watch and participate in:

“This herd lived in a tiny pocket of jungle surrounded by rice fields. The land had been cleared without getting the elephants out and therefore the animals had to compete with humans for food and water. The only way the elephants could live was to raid the cultivation and during the rice harvesting season it was an absolute nightmare. First, we went to the area and set up camp. There was no sleep in the night! All you heard was the shouting of men, the exploding of firecrackers and gunshots and the screams of angry elephants. It was like the soundtrack for Dante’s description of hell. Everyday there were reports of human and elephant casualties and some of the methods used by farmers to defend their crops were unbelievable. May I hasten to add that when one saw the conditions under which those farmers lived and realised that one raid from a herd of elephants meant the total loss of a crop for that season, a farmer was perfectly justified in defending his corp. My opinion is that it should have been the politicians’ who settled farmers on those lands in order to garner votes that should have been poisoned and shot!

“Poisoned fruit, trap guns that maimed horribly, pouring acid and boiling oil onto the backs of elephants from watch huts on top of trees and using six-inch nails driven into planks that when lodged in an elephant’s foot caused gangrene, were only some of the methods used. All this because the elephant was a “protected” animal and most of the guns that belonged to farmers had been confiscated by the authorities with the advent of war. To any sane man it was obvious that actually culling those elephants would have been much more merciful that subjecting them to what was and is still happening. We, in our country actually had an alternative. We knew how to trap, and train elephants and these elephants would provide a vocation and a means of livelihood for two families per elephant but there was politics and the “greenies” to consider. This was the only occasion that something would be considered on these lines and since it had a rather sticky ending, I fear those elephants are condemned to die slowly. It still pains me to think of what was done to us and how the project ended but I will not bore the reader with another anecdote of politics from the third world. This is supposed to be a book dedicated with love to elephants and I will describe the methods used by the traditional elephant trappers of Ceylon.

“The trappers arrived (not in loincloths) with their trusty ropes and we accompanied them on their initial recce of the territory. We were fortunate enough to encounter the herd of elephants resting in a small forest area and immediately the Pannikyars’ were transformed. “Civilised” attire vanished and loincloths appeared like magic. The oldest among them a gnarled veteran of indiscriminate age, said he would go in among the herd and come back to us with a report of how many animals were there and if there were any animals that were suitable for capture. We had permission to capture a few cow elephants to form the nucleus of a team of Monitor elephants that would be used in future plans to translocate pocketed animals. We needed half grown cows around 4-5-foot-tall as these were the best for training. The old man disappeared, and we sat in the shade, in the growing heat, waiting for a report. We all had one ear cocked for an elephantine scream, followed by a nasty thud and the resulting mayhem. Just as we were beginning to get worried the old man materialised, seemingly from the foot of the tree and he had good news, there were suitable animals and we could set our traps.

“We had a further advantage because this herd of wild elephants was actually trapped inside this pocket of forest because (can you believe it!) There was a musical concert going on in the adjoining village and the elephants’ only exit route was blocked by a noisy screaming bunch of music fans.

“The trap itself is basically a noose made of specially cured Sambhar hide. One end of which is tied securely to a stout tree and the noose end is connected to a weighted pulley which hangs from a branch of the same tree and buried in a shallow trench the size of the foot of the animal you wish to capture; remember the formula is 2xcircumferance of the fore-foot gives you the height at the shoulder). All this is then cleverly camouflaged and covered with thin twigs and earth. This ensures that when the elephant’s foot goes in the twigs give way, this then releases a crude spring mechanism that lifts the noose up the leg of the animal and tightens the noose. The elephant is then effectively tied to the tree and unable to free itself. The rope is so strong that even though elephants are known to have knelt down and bitten it with their immensely powerful jaws, it has held up.

“I followed the old man because I knew that he was the master. Everyone used the elephant paths to locate their traps in because when a herd is moving the majority of animals use the well-beaten path and consequently your chances of success increase. While assisting the old man, we got talking and he told me, “There is a lovely young princess (a high caste calf) and she even has tushes (very rare among female elephants in our country) shall we set a trap for her?” I couldn’t believe my ears. To get a female with tushes from whom it was possible to breed that most valuable of animals a tusker, was a fantastic bonus and I said, “Let’s do it,” thinking to myself that I would somehow arrange for permission because it was vital to save those genes from the terrible fate they were destined to. I was also a little skeptical as to how this man was going to set a trap for a specific animal although I didn’t dare ask.

“The old man selected a stout teak tree that grew in the middle of the elephant path. It had a fairly low branch about four feet of the ground on one side and no low branches on the other side. The path went around this tree and there was thick thorn bush on either side of the path at this point. Sulaiman selected a point under the low branch and began to set his trap. I couldn’t contain my curiosity anymore and was about to ask him why he had selected that spot when he began to explain. I think he was reasoning out to himself more than telling me. I was just a fortunate bystander. “The mother leads the herd and she will come first”. “The calf (or the child as he called it) will be close at heel and the adult will pick the easy path and not go under the low branch. The calf trying to keep at heel and getting jostled by the rest of the herd will take the route under the short branch as it is no obstruction to her and then she will be ours.” This is how this now dead master of his art put it. That is exactly how “Kiri” came into our lives!

“Rani and Khadira (two tame elephants) had been brought to the camp to assist in moving the captured animals as we still did not accept the use of tranquilizers. It was the age-old belief that a couple of good monitor elephants did the job with the least trauma to the new captives. Rani adopted Kiri immediately and although she didn’t have a calf at the time she actually came into milk and was feeding Kiri with mother’s milk (not really necessary at Kiri’s age) during her training and initiation into our lives.”

Below is an account of the training:

“We picked a coconut estate that belonged to my uncle, in a fairly remote area with good access to a river and plenty of room for stabling elephants to introduce Kiri to living with humans. We found Kiri in a terrible state. She was riddled with ticks and full of internal parasites. This little elephant calf had also been shot at and there was buckshot all over her body. She was so weak that when she lay down, she needed help to get up again and when she got any food, she ate so fast that it was obvious that she had been brought up on a diet of food snatched from angry cultivators. Kiri would probably have died if she had remained in the wild under those conditions. Even though we had Kiri forcibly removed from us by the politicians of the day, it was nice to know that we had rescued even one of that ill-fated herd of elephants.

“The first thing to do was to simply sit with Kiri and talk to her some of the “pannikayar” sang to her and get her to realise that all humans didn’t hate her. Of course, we also fed her with all kinds of tasty morsels, the treacle from the “kithul” flower and the “juggery”, which is the solidified form of this same product, were the most popular. Having Rani was also very helpful because she was able to communicate, and no doubt explain a few things to Kiri once her initial terror wore off. Rani, as mentioned earlier, was imminently sensible and although all elephants long for the wild—it is so obvious when working with elephants in the vicinity of wild herds—they do form a very good relationship with humans and more often than not adapt and settle down very well. The way I look at it is how we humans (originally hunter gatherers) have adapted to the “rat race”. It is essential to have good (sensible) monitor elephants when training wild ones as this makes a huge difference to the end product. I feel that ‘sensible’ monitor elephants explain the situation to their charges in the correct way and shape a correct attitude by the trainee. Rani however went silly over her charge. She, practical, sensible, down to earth Rani started lactating and decided that the calf was hers. Kiri was quick to realise that she could manipulate Rani and took advantage of every opportunity.

“Kiri hated bath time. Very strange in elephants because they usually relish bathing. This could only have been attributed to the fact that the pocketed herd that Kiri was part of, had to share their water source with humans and bathing was always fraught with danger. Usually, if you let an elephant off in a river it would “dive” straight in and lie down and roll around and it would be very difficult to get the elephant out again. With Kiri it was different. She would stand in the water petrified and try to find a way of getting out as soon as possible. However, to keep an elephant fit and healthy it is necessary to have them lie in water and we also used to give them a good scrub when they did lie down. This was the way to keep parasites off their bodies. Kiri wouldn’t lie down, and we had to make her do it. What ensued was the equivalent of a rugby union ruck, followed by a rolling maul and a total collapse. We had to physically tackle Kiri and get her down on her side, of course she resisted strongly and would accompany her struggles with loud bellows and Rani in spite of all her good sense would get up and come running to help with loud cries of her own.

Bath time would attract the whole village and we even had a request from the local school principal to have bath time after 1.30 PM as this was the time his school sessions were over for the day and he was having terrible trouble with truancy during the last period … Rani was so well trained and we were so sure of her that in spite of the noise and her physical presence she never actually intervened and, therefore, she was no threat. However, Khadira had to be used for the actual training because there was little room for sentimentality when training a good working elephant.

“Initially, Kiri was tied to Khadira by a rope attached to both elephant’ shoulders. This meant that Kiri was compelled to do everything Khadira did and she also learned to associate the commands that Khadira obeyed with the relevant action. They would go off on long walks in the countryside and Kiri did try her charms on her venerable teacher but the “old man” would have none of it. She tried everything, wriggling under the bull’s stomach and trying to entangle the guide rope on his legs and maybe trip him up. Kiri soon learnt that it was a waste of time to try to go the other way when Khadira was obeying an order and standing still really meant STANDING STILL. If the bull wanted to, he could easily have jerked the little calf off her feet and some have been known to strike them with their trunks and even kill them. Khadira was the best of the best. Wonderfully patient and so obedient! He just stood there with just the correct resistance on the rope and his trunk tucked into his mouth so that even if he was tempted… he could resist. Soon this attitude filtered down to the trainee and all unnecessary activities ceased and we had an obedient controlled young elephant so much so that after only a week or two we had Kiri walking all over the town and holding her own on the roads with buses horning at her and of course people falling in love with her. Kiri must have been fed by one in two people who saw her, and they would have little offerings of bananas and other fruit waiting for her when she went on her walks. The hill country villages of Ceylon love their elephants and some even worships them as elephants are associated with the Hindu god Ganesh.

“Kiri and Khadira got so used to each other that on the first occasion that Kiri was taken to have a look at what working was all about she went hitched to Khadira in the usual way and at the place of work she was unhitched and Khadira wheeled off to the right to get to work. The little trainee didn’t realise that she had been unhitched, for it was Khadira’s end of the rope that had been removed and she wheeled in perfect time keeping an even pressure on the guide rope! Of course, we all fell about laughing and Kiri looked rather hurt.

Politics intervened, and our project was deemed another elitist venture and we were accused of murdering some elephants in a cruel manner. One day the long arm of the law came to our estate and ordered us to load Kiri onto a lorry for transport to a life of drudgery in an “elephant orphanage”. Kiri wouldn’t go, and it was I, with a breaking heart and Rani, who had to guide her onto the lorry and she bellowed and cried as the lorry was driving away. Rani’s cries that day were so terrible, and I never want to hear an elephant cry like that ever again. There was nothing I could do, so I hugged her trunk and I wept unashamedly until I found Rani comforting me with the gentle rumbling call that a cow elephant makes to her calf to tell it that “things will be alright because mother knows best”. It took the wisdom of this matriarch of elephants to point out to a humble human that life is cruel and sometimes we have no control of what is to happen to us”.

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