Sri Lankan elephants desperately need a job
Date: 04-Mar-04
Country: SRI LANKA
Author: Geert De Clercq
Sri Lankan mahouts do not normally ride their elephants, but walk beside them, so the animals are not used to being steered by someone sitting astride. At the fourth elephant polo festival in the historic town of Galle, this was cause for some confusion.
"The game is a lot faster in Nepal. Here, the mahouts and elephants are still learning the game," said Hugh Bardell, a sunburnt British soldier who played for the Thai team.
They better learn quickly, because Sri Lanka's domesticated elephants are in desperate need of a new job as machines take over their traditional role in the logging trade.
In 20 years, their numbers have dwindled from about 450 to 190, as captive elephants rarely breed and the government has had a ban on catching wild elephants since the mid-1970s.
About 40 elephants still work in logging, 40 have found new jobs in tourism, but the rest face an uncertain future.
At the same time, the undiminished demand for elephants in religious processions puts pressure on the dwindling number of elephants, especially the tuskers, of which only 18 are left.
Asian elephants rarely have tusks, unlike African elephants. In the Sri Lankan subspecies, they are present in only three to five percent of males.
"Only tuskers can carry the relics of the Lord Buddha, with the result that these animals have to travel all over the country. Their soles are not made for walking on concrete," said Ashoka Dangolla, a veterinary professor at the University of Peradeniya, and Sri Lanka's leading authority on elephants.
Many elephants walk for days to get to the venues for Sri Lanka's numerous parades, damaging their feet.
There are a few specialised lorries, but three elephants have died in lorry accidents, including a tusker.
At a "perahera", a Buddhist procession, in Colombo last month, 66 elaborately decorated elephants marched for three evenings, accompanied by hundreds of drummers and dancers.
Most full moons are an occasion for a perahera, with the biggest one in Kandy in July or August, when thousands of devotees and tourists congregate in Sri Lanka's old highland capital for one of the most impressive pageants in Asia.
But as captive elephants' numbers keep falling, perahera organisers find it ever harder to find enough elephants.
Rubber grower Sunethra Mapitigama is one of a few women in a select club of about 75 elephant owners in Sri Lanka. Her father-in-law had 21, her late husband had 13, but now she is left with just three: Nanike, 50; Rani, 48; and Ranthi, 28.
Owning elephants is mainly a matter of prestige, but the animals need to earn their keep and their mahouts' salaries.
"My children don't like them to work, they just want to keep them as pets," she said, adding that that is too costly.
She now charges about $30 per elephant per day, for logging or tourism jobs. Polo is a new thing, and her elephants took part in the Galle tournament for only the second time. Their next job will be to appear in a Discovery Channel television programme on Sri Lankan elephants.
Slowly though, all her family's elephants die of old age. "Sri Lanka is running out of domesticated elephants. Their future looks bleak," she said.
ORPHANAGE A RAY OF HOPE
The 3,000 to 5,000 elephants estimated to still roam Sri Lanka's jungles don't fare much better. As elephants end up in fields and villages, conflict with people is rife.
Last year, about 80 people were killed by elephants. Dangolla said most villagers die on their way home from neighbouring villages. If they stumble across a lone bull, he will often charge and trample them.
In 2002, 106 wild elephants were killed by fearful villagers, by gunshot or poisoned with pumpkins stuffed with insecticide. Many are also killed by planks with nails, purposely put on elephant trails. As the nails get stuck in the foot, the animal slowly dies of gangrene.
Many orphaned baby elephants end up in the government-run elephant orphanage in Pinnawala
