CATCHING WILD ASIAN ELEPHANTS | Facts and Details

CATCHING WILD ELEPHANTS

To catch wild elephants the Indians drove herds into stockades; the Vietnamese ran them into lakes and harpooned their ears and dragged them from the lake. Elephants usually kept one step ahead of their pursuers. Signs that elephants have been around include mashed grass, dung, wallows.

In Sri Lanka, large herds are rounded up like cattle on a cattle drive. In 1979 one herd of 150 wild elephants grouped in clusters over a 150 square mile area was herded 30 miles to Wilpattu National Park. "Night after night," wrote naturalist Lyn de Alwis, "our enthusiastic rangers and other trained employees---with thunderous firecrackers, brilliant flares, bonfires, and their own raucous hooting, howling, and caterwauling---persuaded recalcitrant elephants to abandon their familiar haunts for places unknown, and not to sneak back!...Because of its complexities, the relocation of those animals took full 12 months."

In some places, certain tribes are responsible for catching elephants. The Suay tribe of eastern Thailand lassoed the feet of wild elephants from the backs of tame ones. Not surprisingly they look to the spirits for support. One Suay elephant catcher told National Geographic, "Dangers awaited us always, especially from fighting between wild elephant families and our mounts...The wives could not cut their hair or speak to strangers when the men were away. We spoke only a ghost language to bring us luck and not the let the elephants know we were coming.←

Catching Wild Elephants in Thailand

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In Thailand , according to Reuters, tamed elephants were used to lure and maneuver wild herds into funnel-shaped bamboo or teak stockades, known as kraals, during great elephant drives in Thailand's northern provinces and southern seaboard from at least the seventeenth century onwards. Torches and flares were set off behind the animals, to usher them into the kraal, and a gatekeeper high above dropped a heavy gate to lock the herd inside. Tame elephants were also used to lure wild individuals away from their herds in the country's northeast. [Source: Reuters December 23, 2007; Elephants of Thailand in Myth, Art and Reality by Rita Ringis, Oxford University Press, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals]

Reuters reported: “Once trapped, the youngest, easiest to train, elephants, were lassoed and tied to stakes, and unsuitable animals freed. - Pulled into tight, wooden "crush" enclosures, the elephants were tamed into obedience by a method called the "phaajaan", or breaking of the spirit, which is still used today. - Trapped barely able to move for days or even weeks in the crush cage and deprived of sleep, they are alternately starved or fed, until they accept chains or harnesses without a struggle and respond to rewards. [Ibid]

“In 2002, animal welfare group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), protested against the use of the phaajaan in Thailand. The group called for a boycott of the Thai tourism industry, which now employs the majority of trained elephants, because of the cruelty of this traditional method of elephant training. The government denies allegations of cruelty. [Ibid]

Catching Wild Elephants in Assam

In Assam two mahouts ride on a “koonkie”, or trained elephant. On rides on the neck with a lasso to capture wild elephants. the other stands on the elephants rump prodding it on with jabs from a metal spear. The mahouts hope to lasso a young elephant separated from its herd. But this easier said than done. Females carefully guard their young and large male tuskers, capable of tearing apart a trained elephant charge any intruders.

Describing the capture of young 13-year-old male elephant Paul Watson wrote in the Los Angeles Times: “With two of his “mahouts” riding trained elephants to block the flanks, Rabba pursued his quarry on the back of an elephant he caught 30 years ago..They chased the younger male for about an hour. When the tired animal stopped to eat, Rabbha quickly roped him.”

“His team of three elephant dragged him about three miles. They bound his legs and neck with heavy ropes of sisal fiber and lashed him to three eucalyptus trees, They ropes were wrapped six times around each hind leg and tied back to a 45-degree angle, forcing most of the trapped elephant’s enormous weight forward. Day and night, he is always off balance.”

Elephant Round-up in Mysore

One of the last great elephant round-ups was held in the Begur State Forest near the town of Mysore in southern India in 1969. To capture the elephants, a mob of several thousands of beaters making noise with whistles, bugles, shotguns, bamboo clappers and shouts and a group of 35 captive elephants known as “kumkies” surrounded a herd of 66 elephants and drove it into an 11-acre stockade made with 8000 twenty-foot-long teak logs and bamboo fencing. [Source: Harry Miller, National Geographic, March 1969]

The wild elephants were surrounded in a forest and gentle as possible directed towards the stockade by the beaters, mahouts and kumkies. Fires were light along the river to keep them from escaping in that direction and great care was taken not panic the animals into a stampedes. A large tusker guarded a position next to stockade that was the most likely escape route. A kumkries and mahouts were like horse and cowboys rounding up strays and returning them to the herd.

The stockade was built with teaks logs that were sunk in four-foot-deep holes dug with out incredibly long-handled shovels. Pumps were put in a nearby the river and showers were set up in the stockade to keep the elephants cool and damp and to prevent them from wilting in the sun. At the opening of the stockade was hinged wooden drop gate, supported by two 27-foot-high teak logs, that dropped when the animals were inside.

Stands for set up around the stockade for spectators who paid as much as $66 a piece for their seats. In addition to the beaters, watchmen and support people were hired. A total of a 1,500 people paid 40 cents a day and given food for the duration of the round-up.

Getting the Elephants into the Stockade in Mysore

The most difficult part of the round up occurred when the herd of wild elephants approached the stockade. Sensing there was a trap the herd stood outside the gate for 15 minutes. One of the female elephants charged the kumkies to protect her calf, but in the end she and others gave up their stand entered the stockade. When they were all inside a rope hold the gate open was slashed with a knife and crashed shut.

The captured elephants were later enticed into the roping stockade with sugar cane where they were elephants assistants ran underneath the wild elephants and slipped ropes around their hind legs so the animals could be tied to a tree. Kumkies pushed against the wild elephants to keep the wild elephants distracted so they wouldn't fatally kick the assistants who were paid a salary of $20 a month. And a crowd watched as some men lassoed the wild elephants around their neck and others scrambled onto kumkries like rodeo clowns escaping from a bull. It took 10 days to secure all 86 elephants to a tree.

Mahouts were assigned to each wild elephant. For the younger mahouts it was their first elephant. They stayed with elephants around the clock eating and sleeping with the elephants, dressing the wounds from the ropes. Punishment for bad behavior was meted out with a stick and good behavior was rewarded with chunks of sugar cane. After being broken and trained In 1969 38 of the elephants were auctioned off for $22,093.

Breaking a Wild Elephant

Elephants are one of the few wild animals that can be trained as an adult. Even so as rule, the younger an elephant is the easer it is to train. Breaking a wild elephants taks about a month. They more he tries to resist the deeper the ropes cut into the elephant’s skin. Watson wrote: “When he struggles against his bands, the eucalyptus trees creak like ship timbers against the sea, The ropes rub his oozing wound and his whipping captors hit him with a stick and then gently strike his trunk...It is tough life, and the torment won’t end until the elephant submits to the men who pull the ropes, wave fire in his eyes each night and sing to him of past glory,”

At night one of the mahouts “climbs on the trapped elephant’s back, while another strokes his trunk, and a third thrusts a flaming torch towards his bulging eyes...They want the elephant to overcome his fear of fire, and obey the men who control it. To sooth him, they sing a song” with “verse passed down through generations of mahouts from the 16th century.”

As the captured elephant tugged on his ropes and let out rumbling growl a mahout told the Los Angeles Times, “He’s crying. He’s missing his folks. We also feel bad, but we’re just doing our duty. Once he’s through all of his training, maybe in two or three years, he’ll be part of our family. But not before that.” Animals rights advocates and environmentalist have criticized the practice as being unnecessarily cruel. The elephant’s captors says they try to be as humane as possible,. They said the rope urn and wound and tend with cottons balls and a basting brush and the elephant are given daily baths with trained elephants looking on.

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: Animal Diversity Web animaldiversity.org ; National Geographic, Live Science, Natural History magazine, David Attenborough books, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, Discover magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Reuters, Associated Press, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, Wikipedia, The Guardian, Top Secret Animal Attack Files website and various books and other publications.

Last updated December 2024