A Look at Working Elephants

September 22 has been designated as elephant appreciation day, and in today's world the elephant is a political pawn. They're loved for their intelligence and power and poached for their ivory tusks. They're a threat to farms in some areas and in others they do as elephants have done for decades - serve man as a working elephant.

In the USA we think of animal power as horses, perhaps oxen, occasionally large dogs come to mind. For many areas draft power equals elephants and it's here that their power and intelligence is tested. Extreme poaching and dwindling wild spaces have left two almost certain outcomes - domestication or extinction. It would be a shame to have this regal animal gone forever.

According to elephantstay.com working elephants are, like other animals, healthy animals. For many years the elephant's meal source was working in logging along with their handlers. As logging became illegal elephants were unemployed along with their handlers. Logging elephants may live into their 50s but those used for tourism can be 60, 70 and even 80 years old! It is true that an elephant can't start training and working as early as a horse or ox, but no other animal including man comes close in the length of service a working elephant can put in!

Working elephants have their food and shelter provided, and unlike their wild counterparts aren't left roaming for food. With that need taken care of many are quite content with regular working and being confined, although activists disagree with the elephant's life choices. There is no human being alive that is going to confine or force an elephant to do what they don't want to. At the Kraal they found working elephants were much more likely to breed. They were active and not left to boredom or health issues from not being active. Breeding is the only way to increase numbers to keep the elephant population growing.

There are 3,000 elephants left in Thailand, most living with people. Turning a captive animal into the wild insures death - a slow, agonizing death as domestic elephants have been provided for. The skills for survival haven't been needed. Weaning elephants, like weaning any animal, meets with some stress for a little while as they adjust to their new life.

Positive handling, much like horses, is effective for training elephants with less aggression. This makes it safer and more reliable to handle the elephant not only for working but for veterinary care when needed. Pressure, reward, repetition and physical and mental comfort are key in the working elephant's training. Whether for entertainment such as circus performances or traditional work or elephant rides a young elephant, like a young horse, can be trained alongside the mother.

Mature males, like mature animals of more familiar species, can have periods of musth when testosterone is at a higher level and the individual can be much more difficult and aggressive both towards people and other elephants. The Working Elephant Programme of Asia has extensive amounts of outstanding information about training and handling working elephants.

Elephants vary by size and to some degree coloring, from nearly black to almost white. The Asian elephant, most common for working due to their more even temper and trainability, is the closest living relative of the woolly mammoth. We can't bring the mammoth back and certainly modern living didn't affect their extinction, but we can help the Asian elephant.

Today a great deal of information comes from the experience of Ringling Bros. with over 130 years living and working with elephants for entertainment. They maintain a herd of around 70 elephants including retired elephants from their shows. Their website documents elephants can run up to 25 miles per hour and can eat 150-250 pounds of feed per day. They are social, playful and intelligent animals with long memories.

An amazing look at a working elephant shows the elephant here is controlled on voice and body without touching the animal to pull a large log out, then the elephant carefully and determinedly pulls the log out of the muddy area. Another view shows the elephant moving large piles of logs with their feet, trunk and head. The cues are obvious as is the intelligence of the elephant in having learned to do a job in several ways. This doesn't just happen - it takes a bond and much training to have a working relationship with an animal that can be up to 11,000 pounds and a young elephant learning lessons starts with smaller tasks.

Although we may not work elephants here in the USA save for entertainment, it seems clear that only in having a job and understanding handlers will save them. Appreciate this amazing animal for what they can do around the world. It seems clear - use them or lose them. It'd be a shame to use them.