Day 16-17

Mahout training at Thai Elephant Conservation Centre



It makes sense when you find out that the organisation that runs the park is the Forestry Organization- they can't log with elephants anymore so they employed the mahouts that worked the elephants in the camps as 'mahout trainers'. These guys are pretty good considering they were loggers and are now tourist trainers. A bit like asking logging workers in Tasmania to stop cutting old growth forests and show japanese tourists how to use a forklift.


The place has 70 elephants and employs four vets who work at the centre, in the mobile clinic and in rotation looking after the Kings elephants. They provide health care free of charge to elephants, even privately owned ones. Mostly the elephants were treated for eye/ear problems and emaciation.


When we arrived we were asigned an elephant and a mahout and after saying hello he directed me to get onto the elephant's neck. We then proceeded to get on and off a few times (either from the side or off the head as the elephant leaned down) before being participants in the twice daily bathing show. There is a command for spraying water at someone (boon bong?maybe) which they used as liberally as possible. I think Jono ended up half submerged on this first bathing trip. This was followed by the first of three shows in which it has to be said Jono was the star attraction. All the elephants line up and show the basics command, on and off on the side.

When Em says star attraction, I say child actor with poor working conditions. Seriously I was the schmuck who had to stand in the middle of the arena while my very cool elephant Luc Khan walked over to me and put a Mahout hat on my head. If that wasn't enough embarassment, another elephant walked over to me and sprayed a trunk full of water on me after the hat was placed on my head.

For those interested:
Soong Song - get on the elephant. It helps you up with it's leg. Very, very cool.
Hap Song - get off the elephant from the side.
Tak Long - get off the elephant by sliding off the front. You then jump over the elephant's head back onto it.
Nan Long - Sit
Map Long - Lie down
Non Long - Lie down on side
Look- Get up
Gep Bon - Pick up whatever it is.
Bon - raise your trunk.

Getting to work with an elephant was very cool and also a little sad as well. Thailand unfortunately doesn't understand animal welfare, environmental enrichment, behaviour and learning theory behaviour and training. It's not like the western world is a long way ahead in this regard. They are and they aren't. Unfortunately most of the elephants at this park had no environmental enrichment, had very few opportunities to exhibit normal behaviours and quite a few exhibited stereotypic behaviours (ie behaviours that have no point or benefit). I was able to take some videos of the sterotypic behaviours and the enclosures they were in and some of it was poor to say the least. The explanation I got from the co-ordinator was that it was the elephant's personality. So after a few hundred and more years of training elephants they still don't realise that it has a high likelihood of being an induced state brought on by stress of some kind. The mahouts are actually quite good trainers and do care for their elephants. Some are far better than others, unfortunately not even the two Veterinary schools in Thailand have assited them with improving the elephant's welfare. As Em put it, sheep get better yards in Australia and they don't weigh 3-5 tonnes. And remember we're talking about an endangered species!

There is such a wonderful opportunity in this country to develop areas for ecotourism that encompasses the native animals of the region, while still maintaining the traditional skills of the mahout/tribal people, with a modern understanding of training. A scientific approach to behaviour and learning theory persay. Elephants don't need to be chained with heavy iron/steel links. If you can find a way that they want to work a theoretical piece of string would hold them or better yet a fenced enclosure where they could be housed with combatible elephants (Some elephants like to kill other elephants if given the chance). Unfortunately many citizens of Thailand live in conditions no better than the elephants. Until then not a lots going to change unless some NGO's step in and fund it.

On another note the two other people we did the elephant training course were AUSTRALIAN. Read sigh of relief. Intelligent Australians to boot. One is working for DFA in Thailand and spoke Thai which made life a lot easier and the other was a bookie from the Gold Coast with a law degree. Jono's tips later on in the year. And the best bit was they gave us a lift back to Chang Mai, not before we stopped off at the Mandarin Orient and bought the second best cheesecake in the world (according to Em). First was New York Cheesecake in NY.