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Myanmar Wild elephants Anybody writing about conserving domesticated Asian elephants will inevitably write many sentences beginning, "Every country in the region, except Myanmar, has a severe problem with ..." Myanmar has the best surviving habitat and the highest number of domesticated elephants in Asia. Myanmar holds more than 30% of the world's domesticated population, at least half again as many as either of its only serious rivals, Thailand and India. Furthermore, Myanmar has by far the world's most government-owned elephants, the 2,800 animals of the Myanma Timber Enterprise (MTE), a large and easily managed subpopulation. State ownership of so many elephants ensures that Myanmar boasts the best large-scale veterinary care in Asia. State ownership also means that sweeping management decisions affecting thousands of elephants can be made in a short meeting. Anywhere else in Asia (except Indonesia), to gain such a degree of management over so many elephants would be impossible without massive new government subsidies, radical new legislation, and traumatic changes in jurisdiction amongst ministries. Life is difficult for Myanmar's elephants and their keepers, but mostly difficult in a way no different than for untold centuries. Elephant-wise, Myanmar is in an entirely positive sense a living museum, seemingly frozen in time decades or even centuries ago. Myanmar's relative lack of development has ensured a legacy of superb mahouts, mostly on a par with any in the past and quite unlike Thailand, Sri Lanka and India, where standards of mahoutship seem to slide disastrously with each successive generation. Myanmar still enjoys a bountiful, relatively untouched natural environment which, according to Lwin (1994), holds "300 mammal species, 1000 species of birds, 360 species of reptiles and 7000 species of flora including 1200 tree species." The abundant flora ensures that all domesticated elephants are able to eat a wide variety of plants and to eat their fill, at least if given time to do so. (Such abundant food is strikingly unlike Sri Lanka, where food is scarce and must usually be brought to the elephant, or parts of Thailand, where many elephants are seasonally forced to leave home and wander in search of food.) Bountiful forests also provide Myanmar's elephant owners with full employment, there being a paying job for the owner of any fit elephant. Healthy forests also ensure contact with wild bull elephants which continue to sire many of the calves born to domesticated cows, an ancient means of recruitment rapidly vanishing in other countries as wild numbers fall and as the proximity of domesticated elephants to them lessens. Nonetheless, while much better off than its neighbors, Myanmar does suffer from environmental problems. Some severe environmental repercussions are inevitable when a human population increases from 7.7 million in 1891 to 43.1 million in 1993 (Aung, 1994). One international study (Anon., 1983b) reported that, "Satellite monitoring shows that the estimated 57% forest cover of 13 years ago [1970] had been reduced to 47% by 1980, a percentage figure which included even then vast areas of scrub vegetation and bamboo. Deforestation is estimated to be continuing at an average rate of 250,000 acres a year." Deforestation in other Asian countries has always brought an initial heavy demand for elephants inevitably followed by a catastrophic loss of work for elephant owners and food sources for their elephants. A fresh challenge is that Myanmar banned the capture of wild elephants in 1995, at a time when the birth rate of the MTE's 'herd' is too low to sustain itself, even though that birth rate is as good as anywhere else in Asia. Nonetheless, the MTE's absolute control over nearly half the national population ensures easy implementation of straightforward corrective methods - so long as senior management allows. ' See 'Captive breeding and the MTE,' page 116. Hard data abounds, at least relative to other countries, but very little of a general nature has been written about Myanmar recently, so many questions about craft and culture, in particular, remain obscure. Several very fine books about domesticated elephants have come out of Burma, as Myanmar was called when they were all written. (To avoid anachronisms, Myanmar will always be called Burma for the distant past and for describing events whenever Burma was still the country's official English-language name.) Evans's 1910 Elephants and Their Diseases is a landmark work on the hands-on management and veterinary care of elephants, and Ferrier's very similar 1947 work, The Care and Management of Elephants in Burma, is equally valuable. The classic Elephant Bill (Williams, 1950) makes for excellent and informative reading, as does Williams's 1954 Bandoola, although that work is more atmospheric and offers less factual information. (One cannot read Williams without wishing that he had written a book specifically for elephant managers.) Gale's Burmese Timber Elephant (1974) remains a first-class blend of hard information and colorful description. If the present book focused on the timeless aspects of keeping technique rather than contemporary problems, all of these books would feature far more than they do below. Wild elephants Myanmar's ratio of domesticated elephants to wild elephants is, like that of Thailand, extremely high - about 130% - as shown in Table 3. (See 'Domesticated-to-wild elephant ratio,' page 26.) Distribution of domesticated elephants ' See Table 9, page 105, for numbers by state. Numbers of domesticated elephants Past numbers Estimates for pre-war numbers are unclear and perplexing. Evans (1910) casually mentions that at the time the Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation owned '2,000 or 3,000 elephants.' Hundley (1935) later refers to a single teak firm with 1,507 elephants. Gale (1974) states that the number of elephants'owned by the timber industry of [pre-war] Burma was about 10,000,' including 6,500 full-grown elephants and 3,500 under the age of 18. Williams (1950) states that at a conservative estimate before World War II there were about 6,000 adult elephants at work for teak firms and thus (assuming another 4,000 animals too young or too old to work) his numbers would seem to agree with Galefs 10,000. A later government source says that before the war there were about 7,000 elephants engaged in the timber industry (Anon., 1982a). Coming from true experts but couched in hopelessly vague terms, such population estimates raise some puzzling questions about the elephants owned and hired by teak firms and even more puzzling questions about the number of elephants neither owned nor employed by the teak firms. From Evans (1910) to Gale (1974), no contemporary expert ever published an opinion on the number of elephants that were not working for the teak firms. Since time immemorial many elephants in any national population have been local or ehomef groups which produced large numbers of animals to be sent to work venues employing many elephants: logging concessions, construction projects, key trade routes, etc. Busy work sites such as logging camps will keep very few elephants which cannot be worked, so every work group comprised entirely of healthy, adult elephants must also have a counterpart group incapable of work: calves, pregnant and nursing cows, old elephants, physically unfit elephants, etc. This counterpart group of unproductive elephants will normally be based in the home village, where care is much easier and cheaper. Probably about 40% of a typical elephant population is unable to do hard work. (It might be a bit more or less, but 40% is close enough for the following argument.) Assuming four unproductive counterpart elephants at home for every six elephants hired by the teak firms, then many elephants have not been counted in the 10,000 'teak firm elephants'. Furthermore, beyond logging, a great many fit, privately-owned elephants must obviously have worked as khoonkies and even more as pack animals on regular trade routes, particularly in the remote and hilly areas of north and east Burma. Accepting 10,000 elephants as the consensus of opinion for pre-war teak firm elephants in Burma, if only another 3,000 uncounted fit adult elephants worked privately (and if they had their approximately 2,000 unproductive counterparts), there could theoretically have been upwards of 15,000 domesticated elephants in pre-war Burma, perhaps even 20,000 - a not implausible figure given that 20,000 elephants have been ascribed to nearby northern Thailand a few decades earlier. Clearly, numbers before World War II were much higher than the numbers given for teak firms by Evans, Williams, or Gale - although just how much higher remains anybodyfs guess. Whatever numbers were before World War II, the conflict had grievous effect on Burma's domesticated elephants. All the warring parties desired elephants as work animals; both the British and the Japanese invariably confiscated elephants, but the Japanese more frequently overworked them, often to death. Invaluable in transport, logging, and construction (especially building bridges), elephants were killed from the air and the ground by both sides. Many owners released their animals into the forest so as to give them a chance of survival. Other owners, trying to make the best of a bad business, sold their elephants cheaply into Thailand, which although technically an ally of the Japanese witnessed little fighting. Only about 2,500 of Burma's elephants survived the conflict according to Gale (1974), who wrote that 'it is incredible that such a large number of giants should vanish so completely within a short span of three years.' In 1973, the Working People's Settlement Board, Ministry of Agriculture and Forests, stated that Burma had 6,672 domesticated elephants, both government and private, which by 1982 had dropped to 5,398, or a decline of 19% over nine years, a drop of serious proportions (Anon., 1982a). Olivier's figures for Burma for the late 1970s are low by half, suggesting that he did not tally privately-owned elephants (Olivier, 1978b). Present numbers Dr. Khyne U Mar (Pers. comm., 1996) estimates that the number of privately-owned elephants is twice those hired by the MTE, which agrees well with the 2,718 animals surveyed by the Livestock Breeding and Veterinary Department (LBVD). (The Forest Department, the agency legally charged with registration, has not published numbers for many years.) Adding the MTE's 2,873 elephants to the 2,718 surveyed by the LBVD gives 5,591, which, allowing for some unregistered animals, suggests that 6,000 elephants is a reasonable minimum. Several strong arguments point to the likelihood of higher numbers of privately-owned elephants. First, there must be sizeable numbers of unregistered animals in remote areas and in areas of weak government control, particularly areas occupied by tribal elephant-keeping peoples such as the Shan (Tai Yai) and the Karen. (Aung [1994] says that in 1985 many unlicensed elephants were found in Kachin.) Second, even in government-controlled areas registration procedures would seem to have become less rigorous of late (as will be discussed below), suggesting uncounted elephants. Third, a significant amount of illegal capture suggests uncounted elephants, the captors naturally wishing to avoid registration; the number of elephants smuggled into Thailand supports this contention. Fourth, assuming all data in Table 9 to be accurate, if the 1,126 privately-owned, fit, adult elephants hired by the MTE have 750 unproductive counterparts (40%) at home, then only 850 surveyed and registered elephants remain, of which 340 must be unproductive; this leaves the suspiciously low number of only about 500 fit adults to work in private logging (especially softwoods), transport, and village work. These four arguments might easily justify another 500 elephants, perhaps even 1,000, leaving a probably high but still plausible maximum figure of 7,000 domesticated elephants in Myanmar. Let the emost likelyf number be 6,400. The sex ratio of males to females of all ages owned by the MTE in 1993-94 was 0.74:1, slightly lower than the 0.86:1 ratio of Thailand in the same year. Sex ratios in capture would seem to be a big factor; the male-to-female ratio of elephants captured between 1973-1982 was said to be 0.45:1 (Anon., 1982a), an imbalance which undoubtedly reflects the natural bias of kheddah to capture female-and-young family units. Legal status Table : Domesticated elephants in Myanmar, 1993-94
1 Myanma Timber Enterprise data as cited by Dr. Khyne U Mar (Mar, 1995a). Figures for 1994-95 were available (2,924), but 1993-94 was used so as to allow comparison in the same year as the infrequently censused privately-owned elephants. Provinces are listed in decreasing order. 2 Full Grown is 18 years and over; Trained Calf is 5-17 years; and Calf At Heel is under 5 years. 3 Data on privately-owned elephants for 1993-94 is courtesy of U Than Hla, Livestock Breeding and Veterinary Department, which conducts a census every 4 to 8 years. 4 MTE data on privately-owned elephants engaged by the MTE to work within that state; they are not necessarily registered in that state."Hired" is the word usually used, but in fact such elephants are working at piece-rate under contract. 5 The LBVD gives figures only for "Bago". Registration MTE elephants are far more meticulously documented than privately-owned elephants, although registration numbers are assigned only after the animal completes training. Elephants are chemically branded at the time the elephant is registered; the MTE brand, a star, and the registration number are applied with caustic soda. Privately-owned elephants are not required to be 'branded'. " See ''Marking for individual identification," page 244. A current project, the first of its kind in Asia, is compiling a central database on the MTE's elephants, the data coming from each elephant's meticulously maintained log book (called 'Form J'). This database is a collaboration between the MTE and the Smithsonian Institution (Conservation and Research Center, National Zoological Park), with Dr. Chris Wemmer as scientific supervisor; financial assistance has been provided by the International Foundation for Science of Sweden (IFSS). The MTE's traditional log books (similar to the'studbooks' of individual animals of endangered species kept in the West) have always travelled everywhere with the elephant and have only now been gathered from across the country, a wealth of long dormant information. (It is easy to imagine a forgotten closet full of Form J's collecting dust long after the death of their namesakes.) Besides all of the expected information on biodata, work history, and veterinary history, MTE log books note myriad other details.1 This database will effectively become by far the world's largest studbook on Asian elephants. A specific practical goal of the MTE-Smithsonian database is to analyze all data pertinent to reproduction (e.g., intercalving interval, age-specific fecundity, neonatal mortality) so as to improve hands-on management in the field. Mar (1994) says the aim is 'to calculate descriptive statistics for each of the life history variables which could then be used to model population growth rate and to recommend changes in management necessary for births to exceed deaths...' Given the log books' wide dispersal, it has proven difficult to trace biodata relating to breeding, such as calving rate, intercalving interval, and data indicative of inbreeding {Wemmer, 1996}. A wider management concern of the database is to compare the reproductive parameters between captive-born and wild-caught elephants and also between dry-zone and wet-zone elephants. A second phase of this ambitious and badly needed project will collect data on privately-owned elephants. Institutions involved ' See 'Myanma Timber Enterprise elephants,' page 126, for life and work history. The Forest Department is responsible for the registration and controlling the movements of privately-owned elephants. (Blower [1985a] wrote, 'The Forest Department, one of the oldest in Asia, is technically still responsible for managing the forests [and elephants], but is hampered by serious shortages of staff and funds, and by the fact that it has little control over the more powerful Timber Corporation.') The Livestock Breeding and Veterinary Department (LBVD), although under no formal obligation whatsoever, is involved in the veterinary treatment of some but not all privately-owned elephants; with some funds and training, the LBVDfs role could be greatly expanded. International interest A highly visible and ambitious proposal ('The Importance of Elephants in Burmese Forestry') saw wild and domesticated elephants as 'two interdependent components.' This proposal suggested a cooperative effort involving the State Timber Corporation (the precursor of the MTE), the Forest Department, and IUCN/WWF; funding was to come from the World Bank (McNeely, 1980). The intention was to enhance management at the State Timber Corporation by improving administration and planning, existing elephant expertise being already sufficient. Project components included establishing a school for training elephants, teaching foresters about elephant management, and preparing a course in veterinary medicine. Olivier (1980) wrote that gthe State Timber Corporation is planning an improved captive-elephant management program, which amongst other objectives, aims 'to improve standards of nutrition, captive breeding, and working'.' Unfortunately, not one of these far-sighted projects was ever realized, probably because of government institutions undergoing change. Veterinary care and health All elephants are inoculated against haemorrhagic septicaemia and anthrax, which are fairly common. (Smith [1930] noted that in some areas anthrax killed as many as 10% of the elephants: 'Anthrax is always liable to attack the crowded stationary camps in the hot weather, and when it comes it kills off the beasts like flies.') Filiarisis is a common complaint, although only rarely a fatal one. While the use of highly sophisticated techniques is often impossible'off in the bush', this lack is compensated for by a wellspring of practical experience and a deep understanding of elephants. Herbal medicines are still very widely used, not out of necessity but out of conviction; and it would be very welcome if someone knowledgeable were to write about traditional medicine. The author remembers being sceptically amused upon reading in Evans (1910) about an eye ointment containing many bizarre ingredients, including spider web; some years later he was chagrined upon learning that Swiss scientists had just discovered antibiotic properties in spider web. (Still, modern medicine is in most cases superior, with traditional medicine best playing a valued support role.) The Myanma Timber Enterprise is currently conducting four research projects pertaining to either scientific animal husbandry or veterinary medicine (Mar, 1995a). First, there is a project using radioimmunoassay of serum progesterone to study the elephantfs estrous cycle with an aim to improving the management of breeding; this work is being conducted under a grant from the IFSS with the support of the Metro Washington Park Zoo (Portland, Oregon, USA). Second, a project is studying elephant semen in order to assess its characteristics when used in both natural mating and in artificial insemination; scientific support and funds were given by the IFSS. Third, there is a project to establish a captive breeding program in the Bago Division, using natural mating; collaborating institutions are the Metro Washington Park Zoo and the Smithsonian Institution. The fourth project is the MTE-Smithsonian database described above. (See 'Registration,' page 106.) Two groups of elephants in Myanmar do not receive adequate veterinary care. First, many elephants in troubled areas get absolutely no veterinary care except for traditional medicine. Second, while MTE and LBVD veterinarians will upon request treat privately-owned elephants, many animals must lie beyond their reach and resources. Myanmar's privately-owned elephants are likely future recipients of treatment by the Livestock Breeding and Veterinary Department (LBVD). Unlike most livestock departments in the region, the LBVD does not perceive the elephant as a commercially insignificant relic of ancient times but rather as a central element in Myanmar's cultural heritage {Hla, 1995}. The LBVD is obviously highly motivated and competent, although possessing relatively little specific expertise in elephants; they presently treat privately-owned elephants whenever possible. Since the LBVD seems very interested in expanding their efforts, future possibilities should be explored. The LBVD has a close relationship with the MTE, all their veterinarians being colleagues, so cooperation and transmission of expertise should be easy. With some outside support, the LBVD, probably in tandem with the MTE, should be able to extend to privately-owned elephants the same excellent care now enjoyed by the MTE's elephants. Recruitment One higher cost will be to find a new source of recruits to compensate for the loss of wild captives. Mar (1992a) states, 'The timber elephant population is normally augmented by capture of wild elephants, but the availability of appropriate-sized wild elephants appears to be declining .... Captive breeding has become the alternative to replenish the declining population of timber elephants.' The MTE's demand for elephant extraction power will remain constant, but to increase captive births will require more time for elephants to mate (and for cows to safely gestate and lactate), thus cutting into work time. In the short term any successful breeding program will invariably cost the MTE lower profits through lost elephant-hours skidding logs. In the long term, however, a finely-tuned breeding operation would surely prove to be a cost-saving measure by obviating the need to expensively buy or expensively capture elephants. Recruitment in colonial days Evans (1910) remarks there is 'a source of supply of more or less trained elephants' which comes from the Karens, Talmes, and 'Laos' (by which he meant people from the country today called Thailand). Referring to mountainous eastern Burma down to the Chao Phraya River basin of central Thailand, Evans says, gIn this somewhat sparsely populated and little cultivated country, intersected by rivers and mountain chains, the elephant finds a congenial home, and it is in this country, inhabited by a shy and retiring people, that a number elephants are bred in captivity.' Some chiefs owned as many as one hundred elephants, having a particular penchant for young tuskers of five or six years. Hundley (1922) wrote, 'The Sgau Karens have handled elephants for generations, and numbers of calves have been born to their herds.' He noted that many captive-born animals were ultimately either bought or hired by the timber firms. Capture To modern eyes, capture in Myanmar has until very recently undoubtedly involved much cruelty (although it would hardly have seemed that to the perpetrators). Describing a training crush in a pre-war mela-shikar capture by the Hkumti-Shans, Hunt (1967) says, 'It had not been a pleasant experience. An elephant born in captivity is brought up amongst human beings and its training is humane from the day it begins; but a wild beast parted from the herd and its mother must suffer agonies before its will is broken.' The 'agonies' visited upon elephants invariably stop to be replaced by titbits and words of praise immediately upon an animal submitting or learning a behavior. Unfortunately, particularly with older elephants, the animal's body is all too often broken before its will. Past capture Burma maintained a government Kheddah Department until 1912 (Olivier, 1978b). Between 1910 and 1927 there were 7,000 elephants captured; between 1910 and 1972 some 14,149 were captured (Anon., 1982a). (About 450 were released but many of those probably died soon from injuries.) Sukumar (1992) says, 'Nearly 17,000 elephants were captured during 1911-1982 in Burma.' A comprehensive Elephant Control Scheme was implemented in 1935 (Yin, 1967). Some areas were declared elephant sanctuaries while others 'were classified as areas in which the extermination of elephants was desirable in the interest of the country's development...' Besides crop protection and the destruction of 'rogues', the Scheme was also intended to ensure a regular flow of captives to the market. A theoretical total of 4,000 wild elephants was considered ample to generate sufficient captives to satisfy market demand, and thus Burma was deemed to be carrying'a surplus stock' of 6,000 wild elephants. Consequently, between 1935-36 and 1940-41 in Burma (including the Shan States) some 3,229 wild elephants were killed while another 1,286 were captured in kheddahs, with a few undesirable animals being released. (Oddly enough, the Elephant Control Scheme survived until at least as late as 1982, according to Anon. [1982a], although by that time there was no systematic extermination but only 'regular and controlled capture.') Such a massive offtake must surely have had staggering impact on the wild population, especially in the favored capture areas. Recent capture ' See Table 11, page 117, for capture figures from 1980-81 to 1994-95. A March 1996 press report in Bangkok quotes the New Light of Myanmar, a state-run newspaper, as saying that eight wild elephants were captured by the Forest Department using 'six tame animals as lures,' and that, 'Wild elephants that have been trampling over Burmese farms are being captured and turned into useful members of society that can help with logging....' Although the details are not necessarily to be taken as accurate, such a semi-official report indicates that at least some government condoned capture still occurs. Offtake Taking 1981-82 as a typical year, the annual capture quota was for 150 elephants to be caught in eight areas by 23 teams: 14 kheddah operations, 6 mela-shikar operations, and 3 drug immobilization operations (Anon., 1982a). All capture was done by private parties except for the drug immobilization teams of the State Timber Corporation. Only 80 elephants were captured. Even though captures consistently fell short of the official maximum sustainable offtake (a number based on a probably grossly overestimated wild population), one international study (Anon., 1983b) noted that the number of captures was 'still excessive because the offtake is not in fact evenly distributed over the population as a whole, but is taken from the most accessible portions of the population.' A government source, the Working Peoples Settlement Board (Anon., 1982a), acknowledged the regional bias and stated, 'It is better to fix the offtake on the exact population area by area, though this would need a thorough census.' The WPSB also noted that, 'Given the continued official offtake and the large but unknown illegal offtake the [wild] population is almost certainly in decline.'A decade later, Sukumar (1992) was still able to state that, 'Although quantitative data are scanty, it has been suggested that offtake is higher than the annual rate of growth of the elephant population.' All such pessimistic assessments owed much to Caughley (1980), the first scientist to analyze the population demographics of both wild and domesticated elephants in Burma. Caughley's key conclusions for the wild population were that the maximum sustainable offtake was 2.5% of the wild population and that, 'The current capture rate of about 120 elephants per year from the wild population [far below the quota of 200] is probably above the maximum possible yield.' Capture methods and mortality Between 1970-71 and 1992-93 there were 2,122 elephants captured with 83 releases and 395 deaths Aung (1994). The 1,042 kheddah captures resulted in a mortality rate of 30.1%, 621 drug immobilizations a rate of 9.7%, but 459 mela-shikar captures had a mortality rate of only 4.6%. The available data on mortalities in capture gives only the numbers of deaths, whereas knowing both the sex and approximate age of dead elephants is essential in ascertaining which classes of elephant are particularly vulnerable. It is safe to assume, however, that older elephants will resist rough breaking more than younger ones and that males will resist more than females, and thus older animals and males always bear a disproportionate share of capture deaths. Numerous causes have been offered for capture deaths ranging from septic rope burns to, however implausibly, parasites; but a frequent compounding factor, according to the WPSB (Anon., 1982a), was 'the rough and brutal handling which the sometimes unskilled labour might have meted out to the unfortunate animals.' Of the three capture methods only drug overdoses cause many deaths at the time of capture. Nearly all other deaths come during the first month or two of rough breaking. What kills elephants is nearly always the sort of post-capture care accorded, not the capture method itself, although certain kinds of post-capture treatment are often associated with particular capture methods. Kheddah Kheddah capture clearly was and is the most destructive of the three capture methods. A particularly gruesome year, 1970-71, brought 64 deaths out of 136 elephants captured or a mortality rate of 47% (Aung, 1994). Official figures cited by the WPSB show one kheddah operation in 1975-76 with 9 deaths out of 18 animals captured (Anon., 1982a). Such staggering official mortality figures for kheddah might even have been low. Blower (1982) wrote, 'It seems that losses in the kheddah operations are as high as 60%.' Of a disastrous kheddah in 1982-83, John Blower said that only 2 out of 14 elephants survived (Pers. comm., 1985). Three sources give average mortality rates for kheddah over periods of many years, with some overlap. For the years 1945 to 1967, Gale (1974) gave a mortality rate of 12.4%. For the years 1972-73 to 1981-82, official figures cited by the WPSB show a mortality rate of 24.7% (Anon., 1982a). For the years 1970-71 to 1982-83 plus the year 1991-92, there were 1,042 kheddah captures resulting in a mortality rate of 30.1% (Aung, 1994) These figures possibly indicate an increase in the mortality rate over recent years, possibly because of less supervision by government officials. After a halt since 1983-84, in 1991-92 kheddah was allowed once again; 55 elephants were captured at the cost of seven deaths, or a low mortality rate, relative to earlier years, of 12.7%, which suggests that the captives were considered important enough to be carefully supervised (Aung, 1994). The nature of kheddah High casualties clearly owe little to the physical aspects of kheddah but much to the practice of not immediately releasing unsuitable elephants and much to the crudity of the rough breaking. A safe kheddah will as soon as possible release all elephants of certain classes prone to high mortality rates: older bulls, pugnacious cows, pregnant cows, infant calves and their mothers, etc. (As an indigenous system of sustained use, many Asian cultures have had strong taboos prohibiting the retention of certain vulnerable classes of captive elephants, most often pregnant cows and cows with nursing calves.) In the 1930s, according to Ferrier (1947), animals over 20 or 22 years became so highly stressed they were 'almost invariably released at once.' Ferrier added that, 'The older the animal the more it resents captivity, and the greater the probability of its dying of a broken heart.' Quickly releasing unwanted or prohibited kheddah-captured elephants is a fine ideal but an ideal which is easier said than done. Cutting out and releasing an angry bull (or even an angry cow) requires masterly expertise by both khoonkies and men. When lacking such skills or when unsupervised, many catchers will shoot problem elephants as a matter of course, the justification being that there is too little manpower and too few khoonkies to do otherwise. (John Blower said that in the early 1980s kheddah operators often killed captured bulls for their tusks [Pers. comm., 1985].) Immediately upon the falling of the stockade gate there is an inexhaustible demand for mahouts and khoonkies to subdue and break all of the captives sufficiently to be able to walk them to the point of sale. Demand is equally high for unskilled labourers to gather food and haul drinking water. The bulk of manpower and food is naturally devoted to the younger, more compliant, and more valuable elephants, leaving the older, more stubborn, and less valuable animals bereft not only of food and water but also without the training needed to be able to walk them to it. When the training of problem elephants finally does begin, they are usually subject to a 'make or break' attitude by the mahouts, who stoically anticipate many deaths. The catchers are particularly impatient because after months of arduous work away from their families they are anxious to sell the well-habituated younger captives and go home. This pattern is typical of unsupervised large-scale kheddah - and quite unlike either mela-shikar or drug immobilization - largely because of the large number of elephants captured simultaneously. (Very small tribal kheddahs, such as the 7- to 9-man teams conducted by the Karen, are invariably much safer.) Kheddah in Burma The above dangers are common to unsupervised kheddah anywhere in Asia, but certain legal and managerial complications are unique to Myanmar. After independence from the British, the newly-formed Burmese government, after consultations with Forest Department officials, began to allow private parties to capture wild elephants upon the issuance by the Forest Department of a 'Licence to Capture Elephants' or 'Form I'. (The following discussion comes from studying Form I and from information supplied by Dr. Khyne U Mar [Pers. comm., 1996].) Essentially, the MTE, at the time still called the State Timber Corporation (STC), would inform the Forest Department of how many recruits it wished. Then, based on the results of yearly questionnaires filled by officials in each kheddah compartment, the Forest Department would 'estimate or 'guesstimate' the population of wild elephants, select capture areas, and decide the number of captures.' Licences would then be given to private kheddah operators for nearly double the number of elephants requested by the STC. After capture, the STC/MTE selected the best elephants for itself, before 1963 getting its elephants for nearly free.) The licensees then paid extremely low royalties (see Table 10) on the remaining, picked-over animals; the sale of government rejects constituted the catchersf dubious profit. The licensees were always anxious for a return on their investment, having shouldered the considerable cost and risk of building the stockade and training the captives. Licensing private parties was a system which did procure elephants for the STC/MTE at the lowest possible cost, but licensing encouraged abuse because profits were low and inspection was difficult. Many captures were either unreported or under-reported, with many elephants whisked off to be sold in Thailand or other areas beyond government's reach. Form I forbids the capture of (or, with kheddah, demands the release of) elephants heavy with calf and 'any malformed, diseased, or seriously wounded elephants,' all of which are to be set free immediately. Unfortunately, some greedy kheddah contractors keep and try to sell such hopelessly unsuitable animals, no matter how high the death rate. For reasons of widespread misconduct, the government stopped kheddah by private oper-ators, with 1982-83 being the last year. Kheddah was allowed again in 1992-93, but with a quota of 100; even then, only 55 elephants were captured (Aung, 1994). Table 10: Royalties paid for captured elephants, Myanmar 1 Height at shoulder Kyats/foot 2 1 As found in 'Licence to Capture Elephants (Form I),' issued under Rules 3 and 13(a) of the Burma Wild Life Protection Rules 1941. 2 Royalty fees paid by licensees for May 1993 and after; earlier rates were about half the above. Mela-shikar Mela-shikar had by far the lowest mortality rate, 9.4%, between 1972-73 and 1981-82 (Anon., 1982a). Aung (1994) states that between 1970-71 and 1992-93 some 459 mela-shikar captures resulted in a mortality rate of only 4.6%. Nonetheless, one cannot help but suspect that with better supervision even the low 4.6% rate could have been easily reduced by the early release of particularly recalcitrant elephants. Mela-shikar is intrinsically safe for three reasons. First, mela-shikar is inherently selective, being a rifle compared to kheddahfs shotgun; mela-shikar normally targets only carefully studied and selected individuals, nearly always younger and thus more pliable animals. (It is important to note that capturing young elephants is good because it lowers death rates but bad because excessive capture can negatively effect the reproduction of the remaining wild elephants a two decade or two in the future.) Second, mela-shikar also brings few deaths because relatively few elephants are caught at one time, leaving sufficient manpower to feed, water, and quickly but safely rough break the captives. Third, mortality will be low in mela-shikar because, unlike much kheddah, all personnel will be highly skilled at mahoutship and training. One unfortunate limitation of mela-shikar in Myanmar is that it is circumscribed geographically, being practised only in parts of the northwest, bordering Assam. Another limitation is that mela-shikarfs leather noose has been largely superceded by a echemical noosef, drug immobilization, at least in wildlife management. Drug immobilization Burma's first drug immobilization capture (using M-99) was in 1967. The method has been employed ever since to capture wild elephants and also to subdue marauding domesticated elephants, mostly bulls in musth. Since 1982-83, drug immobilization has been the only method used to legally capture wild elephants except for some kheddah in 1992-93 (Aung, 1994). Drug immobilization is highly selective, like mela-shikar and unlike kheddah. Of recent drug captures, Nooteboom (1992) says, 'Only the young animals are kept while the others are released back into the forest.' As with mela-shikar, the preference for young animals can damage the source wild source's reproduction when the captives' generation reaches breeding age. Between 1972-73 and 1981-82 some 231 elephants were captured using drugs, with a mortality rate of 20.8% (Anon., 1982a). Aung (1994) states that between 1970-71 and 1992-93 some 621 drug immobilizations resulted in a rate of 9.7%; a table shows that between 1986-87 and 1992-92, only 16 elephants out of 210 drug captures died, or 7.6%, more deaths than necessary but still a vast improvement.2 In none of the data is the cause of death given, making it impossible to separate deaths from drugs (overdoses, inappropriate drugs, etc.) and deaths from bad post-capture treatment. Because all drug immobilizations were conducted by government officers, it would make sense to assume that drug-caught elephants received better than average post-capture care, suggesting but not proving a high incidence of overdoses. Drug immobilization, wrote Gale (1974), 'has been established not as an alternative but as an adjunct to the traditional methods of kheddah and mela-shikar.' McNeely (1980a) suggested devising and implementing gan improved capture programme, possibly based on the use of tranquilising drugs and the traditional mela-shikar capture system.h The biggest practical problem with drug immobilization, according to Dr. Khyne U Mar (Pers. comm., 1996), is that much like mela-shikar it requires highly skilled personnel and much time. Lack of supervision During colonial days in India it was discovered that supposedly unavoidable high casualties, long held sacrosanct particularly for kheddah capture, could be cut to almost nothing under strict rules and supervision. The pioneer was undoubtedly A.J.W. Milroy, a strict disciplinarian who firmly believed that beyond saving elephants' lives, humane training also produced better workers (Milroy, 1922). While Conservator of Forests in Assam in the 1920s, Milroy (1927) instituted strict capture rules by which 'the training casualties, which have been known to be as high as 48%, have been reduced to less than 1%....' Writing of Assam in 1949, Gee (1949) said, 'Twenty elephants were caught by a particular elephant catching company during the last season, twelve in the stockade and eight by mela shikar ... All completed their training without mishap, and were duly sold.' Capture in Burma, including rough breaking, used to be closely monitored. Immediately after World War II, Ferrier (1947) wrote that, 'Keddah operators who have a large proportion of deaths among their captives are 'blacklisted'.'Blower (1982) wrote, 'In former times the kheddah operations for the capture of wild elephants were very carefully supervised, but it is now left to independent contractors who go out into the jungle without any supervision and have to produce so many elephants....' Aung (1994) raises several critical questions concerning kheddah capture, including the level of experience of the capture team and whether there is adequate supervision by veterinarians. (While a veterinary presence is desirable, the basic need is simply for on-site officials with sufficient knowledge of elephants to spot abuse and sufficient power to stop it immediately.) Aung even asks: 'Should the Forest Department be allowed to capture elephants by the Kheddah method?' Illegal capture Illegal capture, which by definition lacks official post-capture supervision, undoubtedly produces some very high mortality rates. Although not necessarily to be believed, a 1994 story in a Bangkok newspaper reported that Karens (who are usually quite kind to elephants) had captured six or seven wild elephants in Thailand's Kanchanaburi province by pit capture, a very destructive method, and then hustled them into Myanmar. Also found along the Thai-Myanmar border is the most horrible form of illegal capture: to shoot a cow elephant in order to catch her calf. " See 'The market,' page 124, for illegal sales to Thailand. Breeding and the MTE Past breeding When, however, the Bombay Burma Corporation had built up considerable herds of elephants, it realized the importance of the elephant calves born in captivity. These could be broken in and trained much more easily than captured wild elephants. Finally, when the Corporation's herds had nearly reached a strength of 2,000 animals, it was found that births balanced the deaths, and that new supplies of elephants were required on rare occasions. The kheddaring of wild elephants, on any extensive scale, thus came to an end, as it was unnecessary. Other firms were not quite so assiduous but still hosted reasonable numbers of captive births. One of Burma's smaller private teak firms, Steel Brothers and Co., which owned 1,507 elephants of which at least 365 were captive born (Hundley, 1935). Ferrier (1947) writes that, 'In normal times the large timber firms were able to replace about 50% of their elephant deaths by calves born to their herds....' Williams (1950) estimated that some 70% of Burma's 6,000 logging elephants before World War II were born in captivity. The goals of breeding From a wildlife management perspective, captive breeding is not as simple as it might seem. Frankel and Soule (1980) point out that, 'It can be convincingly argued that domestication is an insidious and corrupting force in every CP [captive propagation] programme and that it is impossible to avoid selective breeding by the humans who manage such programmes.' Frankel and Soule recognize at least four kinds of selection that are likely to influencedummy for Table 11the genetics of captive bred animals: selection for increased productivity, selection for perfect type, selection for tractability, and the practice of 'non-selection'.
1 Myanma Timber Enterprise data as cited by Dr. Khyne U Mar (Mar, 1995a; Mar, 1995b). 2 Deaths are listed, then given as a percentage of the total population, and then of three age groups: Full Grown elephants (18 years and over), Trained Calves (5-17 years), an Calves At Heel (under 5 years). 3 Total births are listed and then expressed as a percentage of the total population. For 1991-92 through 1994-95, births are listed as the percentage of calvings amongst Breeding Females, which are simply cows of 18 years and over. 4 Captures are listed and then expressed as a percentage of the total population; quotas are the official maximum offtake. 5 The change in the population is expressed in relation to the year before, first in changes in numbers and then as percentage increase or, lately, decrease of the total population.
Biological factors Nonetheless, Caughley's findings are totally plausible, particularly his conclusion that the mortality rate for all age classes is not particularly high and that the problem lies with a low birth rate. If the 1980 birth rate was about five calves per hundred where eight were needed, then the birth rate needed to be increased by only 60% to create a stable population. Caughley optimistically concluded that, 'If the calculated birth rate is about right it implies that for little extra trouble or effort the timber elephants could be converted into a self-sustaining population.' A 'self-sustaining population' is precisely the goal of the MTE's new policy. Speaking of today, Dr. Khyne U Mar (henceforth 'Dr. Mar') agrees with Caughley that part of the reason for the MTE's decline in numbers is a low birth rate, but she further believes that the high mortality rate of Calves At Heel (23.5% of all deaths) plays a major role in the shortfall between births and deaths (Pers. comm., 1996). Sex ratio For 967 calves born between 1948 and 1964, the male-female sex ratio was 0.97:1 (Gale, 1974). Upon analyzing 278 calvings from 269 MTE cows between 1991-92 and 1994-95, Mar (1995a) found that 131 were males and 147 were females, for a sex ratio of 0.89:1. This 0.89:1 sex ratio at birth is significantly higher than the 0.74:1 sex ratio of the total population in 1993-94 and much higher than the 0.61:1 sex ratio of the Full Grown elephants, seemingly indicating a higher mortality rate for males which starts early, continues into maturity, and possibly lasts throughout life. Dr. Mar (Pers. comm., 1996) argues that while the undeniable female bias amongst Full Grown elephants seems to suggest a higher death rate for males at earlier ages, 'the reality is that more females died in the Calf At Heel and Full Grown classes.' She states that the sex ratios for Full Grown elephants for three recent fiscal years (1992-93, 1993-94, and 1994-95) were 0.6:1, 0.6:1, and 0.6:1, respectively; Trained Calves were 1:1, 1:1, and 0.96:1; and Calves At Heel were 0.84:1, 0.82:1, and 0.85:1, Much of the male-female imbalance can be ascribed to the biased sex ratio of captured elephants entering the population; of 1,171 wild recruits between 1972 and 1981, for example, over two out of three were females. Birth rate The present birth rate would seem to be better than the rate at the time of Caughley (1980). Table 11 shows that in four recent years the calving rate for MTE elephants was surprisingly high; whereas Caughley showed a birth rate of 5.3% for breeding females in 1979, for nearly 1,000 MTE Breeding Females (all cows over 18 years old) during the years from 1991-92 to 94-95 the calving rates were 8.3%, 6.8%, 7.3%, and 6.0%. This average calving rate of 7.1% over four years nearly approaches (indeed, one year even surpasses) Caughley's rate of 8% to be self-sustaining. Caughley noted that, 'Although mating is not actively discouraged it is also not greatly encouraged.' The MTE's current birth rate seems to need to be nudged, not jolted, upward, a task which should not be that difficult with, to paraphrase Caughley, 'a little active encouragement.' Dr. Mar estimates that for every 140 calvings there is a twin birth {1995}. Mortality rate Unfortunately, mortality figures seem to present a dark side. First, perusing Table 11 shows that a peak of deaths seems to have occurred around 1990; while from 1980-81 to 83-84 the average mortality rate was only 2.58% of the population, the years of 1989-90 to 1991-92 brought an average mortality rate of 4.05%. Second, whereas from 1980-81 to 1986-87 births outnumbered deaths, recently births have fallen well below deaths. Examining annual mortality within age classes suggests that Calves at Heel (calves under five years) experience a particularly high rate, as high as 11.10% of the group in 1984-85. For the 15 years covered in Table 11, the average annual mortality rate for Calves at Heel was a seemingly high 8.7% a year. Perusal of the wildlife literature, however, suggests that compared to wild elephants the mortality rate among MTE calves is not particularly high. Sukumar (1992), for just one example, says of his wild elephant study area in south India: 'From birth to 5 years the annual mortality was only 4-5% in female and 8-9% in male elephants.' (The sex ratio of mortalities amongst MTE's Calves At Heel is available only for 1993-94, in which ten females and nine males died.) The death rate of MTE calves, however high it might be compared to other age classes, is probably roughly in line with that of wild calves. Part of the MTE's calf mortality rate must simply be nature taking its toll as curious and adventurous young animals explore a dangerous world. Calves At Heel are vulnerable to most of the dangers facing wild calves: falling down hills, eating poisonous foods, suffering gastrointestinal diseases, and being bitten by snakes (which are seen as playthings until mother teaches otherwise). Dr. Mar notes, however, several unnatural causes to which she attributes many of the MTE's calf mortalities (Pers. comm., 1996). For calves under one year, she points to malnutrition arising from insufficient milk production by their back-at-work mothers. Other threats beyond unavoidable natural dangers include exhaustion in infants trying to keep up with their working mothers, negligence of mahouts in hand-feeding calves that cannot nurse, and sibling competition for milk which results in malnutrition or even injury to the younger calf. For older calves, she believes that deaths in training might be decreased by beginning training earlier; she suggests that the present policy of beginning training at the age of four or five (or when calves reach a height of 5 feet) is counter-productive because five-year olds, especially males, can be aggressive and dangerous, which invites repercussions from mahouts. Also, reduced food intake due to stress might retard growth and damage health at a particularly sensitive age. Furthermore, training older calves takes more time than training at an early age, thus bringing more injuries to older calves. It would appear that in addition to the natural hazards faced by wild calves, domesticated calves must also face hazards specific to domesticity, at least as currently practiced by the MTE. Dr. Mar (Pers. comm., 1996) believes, however, that the MTE's high calf mortality rate can be reduced 'with adequate care of both mother and the calf.' Non-cycling cows Except for two hot weather rest periods, Full Grown cows of the MTE are worked very hard all year around. (See 'Work performed,' page 127.) A study by Dr. Mar using radioimmunoassay to analyze the blood of seven working cows for progesterone, a sex steroid, found that six out of the seven were so overworked and so poorly nourished that their depleted body reserves were too low to be able to synthesize the sex steroids needed to trigger reproductive function (Pers. comm., 1996). These six cows were simply not cycling (coming into estrous), and Dr. Mar compares them to women athletes, such as marathon runners, whose reproductive physiology has simply shut down. (The condition is worsened if the working cow is also lactating.) As a consequence, MTE cows have fewer and fewer calves as they grow older, and 'The prime reproductive age is between 12.5 and 19 years, which is the transitional period between Trained Calf and Full Grown.' Dr. Mar says that the number of cows which died in four recent years was much higher than bulls, a rate she attributes partly to the already considerable burden of gestation and lactation being exacerbated by overwork. A broadly parallel depleted condition exists for bulls but, though equally lamentable for individual elephants, in management terms a diminished reproductive capacity in males matters less than with females because in most captive breeding programs fewer bulls than cows are needed. Human factors Hot season rest camps and musth Rest camps have long been the primary venue for breeding, even though their raison d'etre is not to breed elephants but rather to spare them the season's scorching heat and to disperse them so as to fully utilize scarce food and water. Caughley (1980) makes some interesting observations about the efficiency - or lack thereof - of hot season rest camps as breeding facilities. He first makes the obligatory and totally correct observation that birth rates are highest where wild elephants are present. Out of 278 MTE calvings between 1991 and 1994 it was determined that 117 were sired by captive bulls, 75 by wild bulls, and in 86 cases paternity could not be determined (Mar, 1995b). Caughley suggests several negative factors that might obstruct successful mating, 'factors which are designed to increase the peace and efficiency of the rest camps.' First, the elephants are very widely scattered. Second, the camps often contain elephants of only one sex. (Dr. Mar [Pers. comm., 1996] says that rest camps do in fact contain both sexes; working camps normally consist of six or seven elephants, with two bulls.) Third, the hot season coincides with the majority of the bulls' musth and bulls in musth are 'restrained from friendly encounters with females....' The hot season of March, April, and May is, according to Gale (1974), the peak period for musth, which most people believe to be true for northern Thailand also. Dr. Mar agrees that 'the musth period is not optimal for breeding,' but after examining ten years of records she believes that musth is scattered throughout the year, which is certainly the reality facing any breeding program. In any case, Asian elephant bulls in musth, quite unlike African elephants, generally have little interest in breeding and, further, even cows in estrous are often very apprehensive and skittish around musth bulls. Mahouts' attitudes In practice, probably not only musth bulls but rather bulls in general are restrained from mating by their mahouts (or the mahouts' immediate bosses). Mar (1995a) writes, 'Breeding has been discouraged because pregnant elephants caused a considerable loss of income to the mahout and some mahouts did not want to give attention to two animals at a time.' Mahouts in Thailand also often feel that bringing elephants together to breed makes their jobs harder, even during a rest period, and many mahouts simply do not want to be bothered with a calf. In one civil service situation in Thailand, many mahouts actively avoid breeding because if their cow becomes pregnant she would be taken off of skidding for two years or more, and the mahouts simply cannot afford to forego the various pay supplements earned while logging. Such situations illustrate how mahouts' hidden agendas can subtly subvert management policies. Work versus reproduction Conventional wisdom would have it that there is a delicate balance or even a degree of direct trade-off between the number of calves born and the number of tons of teak skidded, and such a conflict would seem to be present in Myanmar. McNeely (1980), writing of 'prime working elephants' in Burma, drew a correspondance between 'the low rate of reproduction in captivity' and 'symptoms of overwork and its inevitable concomitant, poor nutrition.' As an amusing proof of cause and effect, a vast and accidental yet entirely convincing field experiment occurred in pre-war Burma; Ferrier (1947) remarks that 'after working our elephants comparatively lightly during the timber slump of 1932/34 an unprecedentedly large number of calves were born in 1934/36.' After examining elephant deaths by month, Dr. Mar discovered a disturbing increase in deaths following the hot season rest period (Pers. comm., 1996). She is doubtful that elephants are being giving sufficient rest and recommends that 'rules and regulations should be updated to prevent overwork in the Full Grown class.' If overwork is severe enough to cause deaths, then overwork is bound to have even more widespread effect on delicate reproductive systems. Presently in Myanmar, many if not most of the MTE's Full Grown working cows are failing to cycle naturally as a result of work-induced stress and poor condition. The challenge facing the MTE is to increase the birth rate without cutting into the elephants' work time and failing to meet production quotas. Dr. Mar (Pers. comm., 1996) believes that the MTE need not be overly concerned about lost breeding potential in overworked Full Grown cows so long as the MTE actively encourages the mating of female Trained Calves between 12.5 and 19 years of age, 'the prime reproductive age.' (One third of all Trained Calves are cows of reproductive age.) She believes that before becoming fully-employed adults at twenty, young cows should, first, be encouraged to breed at the earliest possible age, and, second, should be encouraged to breed with the shortest possible intercalving interval. She states that if half of the Trained Calf cows of reproductive age could be bred, they would produce 150 calves a year. Depending on a flow of calves from the accelerated breeding of very young cows can, however, be seen as an artificial mechanism to maximize work output from the whole population at the biological cost of one sub-group. One concern must be the likelihood, even the probability, that a continual cycle of gestation and lactation at such an early age might stunt the growth of young cows, which naturally grow until about twenty years. Breeding only young cows is clearly unnatural when compared to wild elephant reproduction patterns, and it is hard to imagine a wild elephant population that could sustain itself with virtually all births coming from cows under 19 years of age. Dr. Mar believes that the practice of breeding young cows is not harmful and does not stunt growth. Once the pregnancy is recognized, roughly half way through gestation, pregnant cows are rested or given only light work, and thus have much time to forage; total rest or light work continues until the calf is one year old. Dr. Mar says that most young cows of the Trained Calf class, somewhat surprisingly, become pregnant again within a year of dropping a calf and can tend to the first calf until the second is born. (A resultant problem is sibling rivalry for milk.) She strongly believes that the one year of light work or full rest presently given should be extended to two years, both for reasons of physical health and for the teaching which the mother will impart to her calf. Dr. Mar also believes that a nursery is needed for older calves and that extra manpower is need to hand raise the two-year olds. This situation is a textbook illustration of the sort of ethical dilemma which often confronts the conscientious veterinarian-administrator serving as an intermediary between the well-being of elephants and the business goals of senior managers. Two legitimate ethical sets can come into conflict, the veterinarianfs duty to safeguard elephants and the administrator-veterinarianfs duty to maintain a large elephant population capable of performing a fixed amount of work for a legitimate, time-honored business enterprise. Possible solutions Suppose, as a socio-biological thought experiment (human sociology and animal biology), that for three or four years the MTE simply removed from the work roster a sizeable number of suitable cows, including non-cycling Full Grown cows, especially proven dams. To improve biological conditions, the chosen cows are put out to graze for six months to get them into good condition, whereupon they are put alongside proven bulls. Once pregnant and delivered, these cows are given much time with their calves and only the lightest of work, just enough to maintain control and fitness, and even that only after the calf is quite robust. (An incidental bonus of decreased work would be to reduce the deaths of very young calves trying to keep up with their mothers through all sorts of weather and terrain.) Given such ideal biological conditions, there would be every reason to expect a bumper crop of calves. The sociological factors of breeding are, in fact, mostly economic factors. The biological scenario above could easily be explored in financial terms, even computer-modelled, by MTE veterinarians and accountants, an effort which would surely prove worthwhile. (In fact, the broad picture could be sketched out by a few people in a few hours.) Since MTE elephants eat for free in the forest, the primary cost of breeding is four years of the mahout's salary (about US$960, at US$240 per year) plus the mahout-elephant duo's share of organizational over-heads. The MTE's direct financial outlay to produce a calf is obviously quite low, the largest cost being three or four years' of lost income from logs not skidded by the mother (a figure easy enough to calculate). Costs in breeding a calf are probably less than buying an elephant. The hidden catch is, of course, that these cheap-to-produce calves would not enter the work force for twenty years. No manager is likely to sacrifice his own pressing production quotas to breed elephants which will benefit only the stranger doing his job twenty years in the future. If elephants were like oxen or horses and could do an adult's work from the age of three or four, managerial attitudes toward the breeding of domesticated elephants would be very different. Two parallel and complementary avenues exist to increase the MTE's birth rate: first, to improve the elephants' physical health and their social environment, and, second, to alter the behavior of the people who handle elephants. As for improving the elephants' physiological and social conditions, beyond simply given more rest and feeding time, the prime need is to increase social proximity generally and in particular to promote mating opportunities. Young elephants, particularly males, should be given more opportunities for adolescent sex play, so that more of them will become sexually adept adults. A program to seek out proven bulls would be fruitful. Dr. Mar (Pers. comm., 1996) suggests other means to improve conditions for captive breeding including the establishment of special 'nursing camps' to relieve mothers of a first calf when a second is born. Her most earnest idea is simply to reduce deaths amongst Calves At Heel. In practice, the possible tools fo | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
