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Elephants in captivity: Misplaced godliness and sainted beastliness

17 Mar 2021

It was reported recently that a cabinet paper on the effective management of captive elephants with private elephant owners was to be issued soon with the objective of increasing the number of elephants that can be used for religious processions (peraheras). This decision came after President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s recent statement that the Government will look into taking steps to address the issue of the scarcity of tamed elephants for peraheras. The President made this statement at a meeting held with the Buddhist clergy and the representatives of the Tamed Elephant Owners’ Association, where the monks had stated that issues have arisen due to the shortage of tamed elephants for peraheras and that short and long-term solutions are necessary to address this issue. Sri Lanka’s culture has a long history with elephants – which, according to available data, goes back to the ancient times when the kings ruled the country – and captured elephants have been used for a number of purposes including transporting various materials such as timber, using for cultural and religious events as well as wars (in ancient times), and to be kept as a symbol of prestige, status, and power. With technological and cultural advancements, the role of elephants in a large number of the said activities has been replaced with modern machinery and newer methods. Some of these activities such as using tamed wild elephants for religious and cultural events, however, are continuing. Today’s Spotlight looks into Sri Lanka’s situation with regard to the illegal capture of wild elephants and the practical issues that need to be brought to the attention of the public and the authorities.   Sri Lanka’s situation According to environmentalists, data and research regarding this matter are very limited, mainly due to the secretive nature of this illegal trade and not having adequate access to accurate information. “According to data collected from various sources including the case records of the cases involving the illegal elephant trade and interviews with stakeholders, between January 2008 and December 2018, 55 cases of illegal elephant trade have been recorded in Sri Lanka,” Biodiversity Conservation and Research Circle (BCRC) Convenor Supun Lahiru Prakash told The Morning. Quoting a study report titled “The illegal capture and internal trade of wild Asian elephants (Elephas Maximus) in Sri Lanka”, of which the BCRC was a part, Prakash added that this number, however, is an underestimated figure due to the mortality rate of elephants during capture operations and the difficulties in collecting data due to the nature of this illegal trade. Almost an equal number of male and female elephants are believed to have been traded, Prakash said, adding that more than 50% of them are believed to have been juveniles, younger than five years. He added that more elephants had been captured during the 2014-2015 period than the total number of elephants captured in the 2008-2013 and 2015-2018 periods. Quoting the study further, Prakash added that during the data collection process, the involvement of high-ranking officials, politicians, and prominent figures in the illegal elephant trade had come to light and that the lack of law enforcement against such incidents was identified as a major challenge in seeking to stifle this trade. According to the estimates of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN’s) Asian Elephant Specialist Group (2019), the global population size of Asian elephants was between 45,671 and 49,028, and that after India, the largest remaining population is found in Sri Lanka, which in 2019 was estimated to be approximately 5,900, it showed.   Breaking the spirit A spokesperson for the Rally for Animal Rights and Environment (RARE), an organisation working for animal rights with a focus on educating the public on putting an end to the captivity of animals including elephants, said the entire world has started rejecting the captive elephant industry as it has been identified as a cruel, unethical, and inhumane practice, and that therefore Sri Lanka is at a critical juncture where it has to decide as to whether it wants to move ahead with the world or continue with outdated practices. Speaking of using elephants for peraheras, she added that even though it may be part and parcel of Sri Lanka’s culture, not every traditional practice is completely acceptable. “There are traditions such as the caste system and gender stereotypes we have started letting go of, because we have embraced modern and more humane changes. Slavery is another example; at one point, in some cultures, slavery was a tradition. The captive elephant industry is also the same; it violates the elephants’ rights and is, therefore, more advisable to let go of it,” she said. She added that when it comes to elephants, most of the development of their brain takes place after they are born. In this context, she added that baby elephants depend on their mother to a great extent, adding that separating baby elephants from their natural habitats is very harmful to them because they engage in a lot of socialising, which includes living with their herds and mourning their dead. The RARE spokesperson emphasised that regardless of the reason as to why baby elephants are captured and tamed, this process involves a number of harsh practises aimed at what she called “breaking the spirit of the animal”. “When an elephant is captured from the wild, it is a wild-spirited animal, and wild elephants do not like to be dominated or subjected to the command of humans. But what happens is that in order for the humans to use these elephants for the peraheras and to therefore change them to be in the company of humans, they have to be tamed. Elephants are very scared of sound and fire. At peraheras, humans have to make the elephants walk amidst fire and sounds, which they fear, because peraheras are usually very noisy and there are a lot of fire-related displays taking place. In order to do that, the humans break the spirit of elephants,” the spokesperson explained. “In different cultures such as in India, Thailand, and Sri Lanka, there are different ways of doing it. But the core of it is to immobilise the animal in some way; it could be done using chains or by building a ‘crush box’. This process is known as phajaan in Thailand. Basically, what happens here is restricting the movement of the animal, and this process involves beating with sticks and inflicting pain on the elephant’s sensitive body parts with a bull hook.  When that happens, they get very scared because they remember the pain. That is basically how the humans crush the spirit of elephants, and the process of terrorising elephants in order to make them obedient is a very cruel process,” she added. The RARE spokesperson further said that whether elephants are captured in the wild, or are born in captivity, an elephant is a wild animal. She said that elephants do have to go through the said process in order to walk in a perahera, adding that one of the worst things is forcing elephants to allow a human to ride on its back. “Elephants have to go through torture and its freedom is taken away. If it lived in the wild, they could live a normal life, and what the humans are doing essentially is violating the elephants’ right to live with its own kind,” she opined.   Illegal elephant industry and laws, policies She noted that even though some, especially those in the captive elephant industry, say that elephants living in the wild are in danger of dying due to eating “hakka patas” (crackers that explode in the mouth of the animal as it eats fruits or vegetables in which the explosive is strategically concealed), being hit by trains, and electrocution (due to electric fences), and they cite such instances in order to justify capturing and taming elephants. This, she noted, is unacceptable as elephants are supposed to be in the wild because that is where they belong. “If we think as to whether we want to live in a prison with food and water, or live happily for a few years with our own kind and die, the answer is very clear,” she added. When queried about the importance of enforcing laws and policies that are in place to protect elephants living in the wild, especially from being captured illegally, the RARE spokesperson added that the proper implementation of the law is key, and that in addition to certain inadequacies in the relevant institutions, there is also a certain amount of political pressure brought to bear in this connection. She noted that whether it is about capturing elephants from the wild or illegal fences, the enforcement of the law does not seem to be taking place properly. “Even if they catch the suspects, sometimes they do not get punished. We have seen that there were many cases of illegally caught baby elephants, but no one was punished. In some cases, even after more than six to seven years, no one was punished. When it comes to enforcing the law against them, there is always this request from owners of captive elephants and the captive elephant industry asking for the ownership of the baby elephants that were captured illegally. Doing so would amount to actually encouraging that crime, because those baby elephants were captured illegally to fulfill the needs of humans, sometimes to use for peraheras. If we actually give them back to meet that requirement, then they have succeeded in what they wanted to achieve by capturing those elephants. If that happens, there would be no point in having laws in the country, and if we are to give the stolen goods back to the thief, they will continue to commit the crime. We still believe in the justice system, although we have lost faith in government officials and politicians,” she said. When questioned about a claim raised by some that capturing and domesticating wild elephants is a solution to the human-elephant conflict (HEC), she added that if that was an effective solution, Sri Lanka would not be experiencing the HEC issue, because either legally or illegally capturing wild elephants has been going on for a long time. Noting again that it has not changed the HEC conflict, she pointed out that such steps cannot be taken unless the laws are changed, because currently it is illegal, especially due to elephants being an endangered, keystone species. Meanwhile, speaking of the same, Prakash added: “It is said that the Government will try to hand over the suspected smuggled elephant to the culprits, considering the lack of domestic elephants for cultural and religious activities. However, there is a huge public outcry that these elephants have been captured from the wild by killing the mother animals. If legal actions are not taken properly, these racketeers will continue to capture the elephants from the wild, which will badly affect elephant conservation in the country. In addition, another alleged plan is to send the ‘problem-causing elephants’ to be domesticated, considering the lack of tamed elephants for cultural and religious activities. It will also, if implemented, badly affect elephant conservation in the country. “During the recent past, two attempts were made to domesticate such elephants, but they failed completely. In the first instance, a captured male elephant was taken to the Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage but it was not possible to tame the elephant even after more than two years, and finally, it was released into the Horowpothana Elephant Holding Ground. In the second instance, a captured male elephant was given to the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic (Dalada Maligawa) in Kandy and after immense expenses incurred for treatment, the elephant died from complications due to chain cut injuries to the legs. In this context, the Government must think of newer and more effective methods of managing the country’s wild elephants, and should learn from past experiences.” Attempts to contact Minister of Environment Mahinda Amaraweera and State Minister of Forest Protection, Elephant Fences and Trenches Construction, Reforestation, and Forest Resources Development Wimalaweera Dissanayake for comment in this regard proved futile. The issue of Asian countries, including Sri Lanka, capturing, taming, and using wild elephants for various purposes has been raised from time to time. However, due to the belief that taming and domesticating wild elephants can be done in a humane manner, and considering using elephants for religious and cultural as an inseparable part of culture and tradition, this practice has not come to an end; instead, only a meagre number of regulations have been introduced, which are inadequate to ensure wild elephants are protected from being captured to be tamed and domesticated. The Government’s plans that came to light recently implies that Sri Lanka, instead of taking steps to prevent the torture of elephants, is trying to continue it in the name of cultural and religious practices. Environmental activists stress that the Government should instead take steps to promote elephant conservation and protection.


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