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Methods for Handling The key to controlling an animal of this tonnage in a reliable and animal-friendly way is a good understanding of its psyche. Fear and pain are often used in elephant handling, but they do not provide the most efficient way to control elephants. A better and safer performance is achieved if the handler focuses on improving his skills in motivation and habit formation. WEPA promotes handling methods based on a combination of animal behaviour science and practical experience of handlers specializing in painless controlling of elephants. The basis of the methods is a detailed understanding of elephant behaviour. This makes it possible to control an elephant at work without needing to inflict pain on it. Benefits of Improved Handling Precise, painless handling methods bring benefits to elephant owners and handlers as well as to the elephants themselves. One of the results is a decrease in the latent aggression of elephants, resulting in an improvement in the work safety of staff. The methods of WEPA also provide a range of ways of analysing and solving problem behaviours. For commercial owners, such as hotels and elephant safari businesses, there is the additional benefit of tourists appreciating elephant-friendly handling. Many tourists feel uncomfortable if they see a mahout hitting their elephant during the ride, and though these feelings are most often not spoken out loud, any hotel or elephant safari business that can reliably establish a reputation as an elephant-friendly location is sure to gain appreciation among present and would-be customers. Solving Behaviour Problems When there are problems in the elephant’s performance, the best solution is to start by analyzing the reasons of the problem, instead of punishing the elephant. By understanding the reasons of the animal not performing, the handler can then devise a solution to this specific situation. For example, sometimes things that are labelled “disobedience” actually are conflicting signals from the trainer himself. This makes the elephant confused as to what it actually should do. In this case, a clear observation by another handler or trainer who is skilled in precise, painless handling techniques can provide valuable information. If the problem turns out to be that the handler is inadvertently giving some signals that the elephant interprets as opposite to some other signals the handler is giving at the same time, an improved clarity on the part of the handler is often enough to resolve the situation. A rather common problem is that the handler has had a habit of an excessive use of pressure on the elephant, like constantly pressing his feet or a stick on the elephant while he is supposed to walk forward, and this has resulted in the elephant working under a strong pressure only. In this case, re-training the elephant with the Positive Learning Method to respond to light cues, and paying especial attention to removing the pressure immediately when the elephant starts doing the right thing, makes life easier for both the elephant and handler. In more mysterious-looking cases of problem behaviour, the case often is that the elephant has learned something else than he was supposed to learn. Animals learn all the time, not only when a person thinks he is now specifically training them. The elephant may have noticed in some situation that it pays off to do something else than what the handler had in mind in order to get rid of an unpleasant or painful moment. In such cases, re-training the task at which the problem occurs usually helps, again paying especial attention to correctly motivating the elephant by releasing the pressure on the moment when the elephant starts doing the correct thing, and not releasing it as long as the elephant is doing something else. When the re-training is done in a consistent way, the pressure can be quite light and still effective, as the key to results is the precise timing of the removal of the pressure. Sometimes when an elephant is reluctant to go to particular places, the reason may be that he has experienced something frightening there, or in some other place that bears some resemblance to this one. In such a case, a gradual habituating to the feared place, coupled with rewards such as pieces of food for advancing, can help to overcome the problem. A successful habituation program requires patience to proceed slowly enough, staying just below the threshold at which the elephant starts to feel afraid, allows the handler to reward the elephant for the correct behaviour and thus also to advance little by little closer to the feared place, until the elephant starts to behave genuinely calmly about it. |
Optimal Pressure, Released at Right Time One of the key concepts in the handling methods promoted by WEPA is that when steering the elephant by applying pressure, for example by touching the elephant with feet or a stick, the most efficient and elephant-friendly way is to only apply the minimal pressure that is needed and to release that pressure immediately when the elephant starts doing the right thing. To illustrate both the optimal pressure and the right time, let us take an example. In some cultures the signal for the elephant to increase the walking speed when the back of his head is touched with a stick. An optimal way of doing this is to train the elephant to respond to a light touch and to remove the stick immediately as the elephant has sufficiently increased the pace. A new touch is applied only if the elephant slows down or if a further increase in speed is needed. There are two benefits in doing it this way as compared to the habit that some mahouts have: steadily pressing the stick onto the back of the head all the time to keep the elephant walking. The first benefit is that it is much more comfortable for the elephant to have occasional slight touches with an actual message in them, such as an increase in speed which then is to be maintained until told otherwise, is much more comfortable for the elephant than having a constant uncomfortable or painful pressure of a stick on his head for a long time. The other benefit is that the use of light touches as signals for change only makes it easy for the mahout to signal a further increase in speed with another light touch, whereas a mahout who has the habit of heavily pressing his stick onto the head of the elephant all the time will need to drill it in even heavier if he wants to further increase the walking speed. The same principles apply to any work tasks of elephants. When the handler wants the elephant to turn left or right, walk forward or backwards, the best way of doing it is to apply very light pressure, to increase only if the elephant does not respond, and to release the pressure immediately once the elephant gives the correct response. For more information on how to train an elephant to correctly respond to light cues, see the section on the Positive Learning Method. Why Punishments Are Not Necessary When the handler is skilled in understanding elephants and giving clear, precisely timed signals, the use of punishments in problem situations becomes virtually unnecessary. This is of great benefit for several reasons. Physical punishment is obviously painful to the elephants, but it also makes them more risky to people. Repeated painful experiences from people erode an elephant’s trust in them. Frequent punishments also result in a state of chronic stress in the elephant, which impairs the functioning of its immune system and makes it more prone to diseases. The third problem with punishments is that if an elephant frequently experiences intense pain caused by people, this can start building up a risk of aggression in the elephant. Many elephants react to frequent pain by entering a mental state called learned helplessness, in which they outwardly seem to subdue even though they are internally in a state of stress. However, even a seemingly calm elephant can also at some stage “have enough” and burst into aggression that has been accumulated as a result of all the painful experiences. In punishment-based handling systems, handlers often overestimate the power of punishments. When an animal has been repeatedly punished for doing something unwanted and stops doing it, the trainer tends to believe the result was achieved by punishing. Often the actual reason for why the animal stopped doing the thing in question is that the animal was not getting any kind of rewards out of doing it. The same result could often have been achieved without punishments, for example by training it to do something else instead in the same situation. This usually is a faster approach than punishments, as punishing in itself gives the animal no clue about what it actually is supposed to do. Beating an elephant afterwards has especially little value, as the elephant has no way of knowing why he is punished. Animals’ sense of time is different from ours, and their understanding of our languages is also very limited. Thus, even though the handler thinks he is telling the elephant in words what it was in the previous behaviour of the elephant that angered him, the elephant is unable to understand. If a handler, however, wants to retain punishments as one part of his repertoire of actions, one way of improving the work safety with the elephant and reducing needless pain is to teach the elephant a warning word, a specific word that comes before the punishment. This way, the handler will be able to use this word, if he for example finds himself unable to stop the elephant from doing something by any other means in an emergency situation, and thus achieve the same effect without needing to inflict pain. In practice, sometimes punishments given to elephants actually are just outlets of the handler’s anger, instead of calculated attempts to change something in the elephant’s performance. Anger, in turn can have a complex set of factors behind it. It can have something to do with the handler’s self-esteem, stress and workload, whether he has problems with excessive use of alcohol, what he thinks an elephant is and how he believes an elephant to think, and so on. The problem of elephants getting needlessly punished is thus not only linked to a need to give handlers opportunities to learn more handling skills, but it also is interwoven with a more complex pattern of the psychological and socio-economic aspects of handlers’ lives. |
A stick and an ankus (bullhook) can be used in many ways. In animal-friendly handling technicues, the main use of them is light touching, as a means of reaching further than an arm's reach. A skilled elephant handler can give subtle cues with a stick or any other tool without needing to inflict any pain on the elephant. |
