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Well-Being of Handlers The work of elephant handlers, also called mahouts in many Asian countries, has ancient traditions. WEPA promotes combining their skills that have accumulated during millennia with new ways of handling elephants that are in accordance with their values. One of the results is an improvement in work safety and satisfaction of mahouts. Elephants and the occupation of elephant handling have an important role in many cultures across central and southern Asia. The tradition of working elephants goes back deep in history: the oldest written records of using captive elephants for work date back to more than four thousand years ago. New Methods in Accordance with Traditional Values Mahouts often do have a deep and genuine care for the well-being of their elephants. This is seen especially often in those mahouts background is in a tradition of working with elephants for generations, but there are also first-generation mahouts with excellent understanding of and care for elephants. According to our experience at WEPA with the traditional mahout culture of the Tharu people in southern Nepal, the elephant-friendly approach of our training and handling methods fits well together with traditional values of the Tharu culture. The Tharu are known as a people with a strong bond to nature and animals, and many of their mahouts have good skills in gentle handling of elephants. The new training approach that enables elephants to be trained without hurting them has been received well in Nepal, because it provides a practical solution to training elephants in a way that is in harmony with the traditional values. |
Safety and Work Satisfaction Elephant training and handling is widely known as a dangerous occupation. For example in India, in the state of Kerala alone, about sixty mahouts per year get killed by their elephants. Many of the deaths occur during the musth, or arousal period, of a male elephant, when the elephant has a lower threshold of letting its aggressions out. However, a significant part of that aggression originates from the painful experiences that the elephant has had with its trainers and handlers. A painless way of training and handling elephants results in the elephant being a lot safer to work with. It also results in a deeper relationship between the mahout and the elephant. This, together with the ability to control the elephant with no need for inflicting pain, result in an increase in work satisfaction too, in addition to the improved safety. Interconnected Well-being of Mahouts and Elephants The well-being of elephants and that of mahouts are interconnected in several ways. One of the most significant of them is that a mahout’s self-esteem, stress level, general satisfaction in life, and other aspects affecting his mental state tend to have a profound effect on how he treats his elephant in everyday work. They also tend to have a significant impact on how well he can or cannot read and understand nuances in the elephant’s behaviour. This in turn affects his capability of preventing problem situations and capability of guiding the elephant without resorting to violence. An improved well-being of mahouts, combined with the mahouts having a good understanding of the underlying reasons of elephant behaviour and the elephant’s motivations and emotions in various situations, is thus an important contributing factor to the lives of the mahouts themselves and their families as well as the elephants. |
A mahout and his child in southern Nepal. Across Asia, there still are cultures in which the mahout starts learning the skills from early on, growing up as part of the tradition. If a mahout has a good and trusting relationship with the elephant, the result is an improved well-being on both sides.
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