The elephant moved softly through the bush, stopping occasionally to break branches off the low mopani trees which it chewed, like overgrown sticks of biltong, as it walked. The herd moved ahead of it and behind it, staying in contact with a series of low rumbles, never out of sight, as the early morning sun began its steady, unrelenting climb. And on their backs, the human tourists wondered, excitedly, at the grace of their huge carriers, and their calm and willing servitude.
This is an elephant-back safari. Love or loathe the idea of African elephants being used as a biological 4X4, the concept is here to stay.
Though still in its relative infancy, the elephant-back safari business is beginning to boom in Southern Africa. Where there was a small group of operators there is now a growing list of interested parties with plans that for many are extremely unsettling.
Of course, using the elephant for tourism is nothing new in global terms. Indian elephants have been used to carry tourists in places like Thailand for decades. But the training methods used by the mahouts have been questioned, as their charges are more often than not beaten into submission, obeying commands as a result of fear and suffering.
South Africans were witness to these methods being used on African elephants when images of the Tuli elephants being brutalised on the farm of Riccardo Ghiazza outside Brits were broadcast on local TV stations. Ghiazza had imported Asian mahouts to “train” his elephants.
Although there is a perception that African elephants are difficult, if not impossible to train for human use, the last decade has seen a small number of organisations involved primarily in tourism explore the realm of positive interaction between these giants of the veld and paying customers.
I recently visited the Elephant Camp run by Wild Horizons, a family-based safari company near Zimbabwe’s Victoria Falls, widely considered to be pioneers of the elephant-back safari industry. I wanted to find out how the elephants react to the tour situation and also to ask some leading questions about ethics and controls. The issues were pertinent as news had broken that a business venture in South Africa was planning to take wild elephants from herd environments to be trained for elephant-back safaris.
I spoke to Wild Horizons owner Gavin Best about how he started up and how he viewed the recent developments.
“Wild Horizons first took the initiative in 1995, when it secured the services of Jack, Jock, Jumbo and Miz Ellie four 10-year-old African elephants,” Best told me. “Elephants orphaned from the culling operations which took place in Zimbabwe in the 1980s had been taken in by various people throughout the country and in many instances soon outgrew their foster homes.
“Initially there were reservations within the family concerning this use of such incredible animals, but as there were few options available for their future we decided that if elephant-back safaris were going to develop, then they should develop along lines that allowed or catered for as many of the elephants’ natural needs as possible.”
Hence the “herd” environment during the tourist-carrying forays into the bush. But what about training of the staff and elephants?
“Knowledge at that stage was limited so we sent two of our staff to Riddles Elephant Training school in Arkansas in the United States.
It sounds bizarre to have to send Africans to America to learn how to handle African elephants, but Riddles has led the field and we knew our handlers would need all the input they could get,” explained Best.
One of the staff members sent to Riddles was Brett Mitchell, who now heads Wild Horizons’ South African operation at the Letsatsing reserve adjacent to Sun City in the Pilanesberg. Mitchell is also involved with the Elephant Management and Owners Association (Emoa).
The decision to go to Riddles was also based on the training centre’s track record and use of positive reinforcement training methods. “We felt it was imperative to follow recognised and proven methods of ‘positive reinforcement’. This is the establishment of a bond between handlers and their elephants whereby the elephants are rewarded for performing set tasks,” said Best.
“Once the basics of training have been learnt, it is crucial that dedicated and suitable staff are recruited to work with the elephants. To make good handlers, they need more training than the elephants do because poor or incorrect handling is an accident waiting to happen.”
In addition to Best’s adoption of a natural-needs policy for his elephants, Wild Horizons also has what he calls an “adaptive policy” the elephants are allowed to range freely as a herd between tour activities, which is usually for about eight hours a day. During this time their grooms remain in the vicinity, as much for the elephants’ needs as the company’s because they feel more secure when their handlers are nearby.
Interaction between wild elephants and Wild Horizons’ elephants is encouraged but managed.
“Our largest bull, Jack, recently thought he would impress everyone especially the females by chasing off a wild bull elephant. He returned rather quickly with a lot more than a deflated ego as the visitor had put a tusk through the top of Jack’s trunk,” recalled Best. “This type of interaction suppresses any sexual ideas that might have been surfacing and introduces the elephants to other forms of dominance.
“The mating of two of our females, Janet and Emily, took place at the beginning of this year following an interesting turn of events. A large wild bull had been hanging around the stables for a few days and we were beginning to suspect that one of our girls was coming into season.
“Each of our elephants has its own stable to which it returns each night and receives cubes and branches. They are not chained and the small pole construction serves more as a demarcation of their home than a restrictive cell.
“As soon as the daily activities began the wild bull moved off a bit, but not very far. Initially he did not know that the elephants had left for their daily duties and continued feeding behind the stable. When he discovered that he was on his own, he was off like a shot and almost ran along the elephant scent trail.
“By now, however, our girls were going about their day’s work and had people on their backs. A sexual interlude like the one the bull envisaged was not acceptable at this time.
“Having only delayed the inevitable, we took all the females up to the camp as we needed to be there, not just to observe but also to find out whether it was Janet or Emily he was after. As there are no physical signs of a female being in oestrus, we had no idea.
“After inspecting each of the females he started to feed, so we were no closer to knowing which one he fancied. The following morning we found out when he mated with Janet.
“Two months later, Emily’s stable was broken down around her when another bull made his advances clear. Interestingly, we monitored both occasions and Emily, who must have had maternal feelings of her own, would not leave her friend Janet’s side to follow the bull, even though he encouraged her.
“When she had had enough, she walked into her stable, which by now had been hastily rebuilt, as if to say ‘enough is enough’. He accepted this and wandered off eventually. We will know in due course whether this was a successful liaison or not.”
Keeping the elephants in a natural herd formation is of prime concern to Best. He explained that although this takes time, Wild Horizons has been able to speed up the process through adopting injured and orphaned elephants.
The first adoptee was Mashaba, a five-year-old male found snared with the sole of his left back foot missing. Then came Rastas and Malasha, both orphans taken in when they were about six weeks old. Their arrival initially caused an emotional overload among the females in the herd, but they have since provided the natural balance that was missing.
Tourist support for the commercial operation has made it possible to finance the expensive task of raising these young orphans. Supplying their physical needs is only part of the solution as there are a variety of emotional aspects that have to be dealt with as well. Constant companionship is essential and this necessitates the rotation of suitable handlers around the clock, who must form a bond with the babies as soon as possible. A regular daily routine, which also incorporates socialising with the adult elephants, is an important factor in raising a baby elephant.
Like most human families, stable elephant groups need discipline, love, trust and sibling rivalry. Wild Horizons tries to make up for any lacking elements through observation and dedication, and consequently the staff become an important part of the elephants’ lives.
“The fact that on two different occasions bulls have spent a night or two out with wild elephants and then returned a few days later, having had the opportunity to leave, proves that we are doing some things right,” said Best.
But what about returning them to the wild permanently, I asked? “For what purpose?” he replied. “They have all experienced the trauma of becoming orphans and we have no desire to expose them to that again. We believe there are many other acceptable ways of using African elephants within the tourism industry, even where all the natural ingredients are not available.
“No rules can be made about what is acceptable or unacceptable when it comes to elephants as they are as individual as we are, both in personalities and in character. Surely, though, if we aim for the highest possible standards, we cannot go too far wrong?”
But the sad reality is that all too often finances dictate principle, ethics and policies. With South Africans planning to take sub-adult and mature elephants out of their herd environments for training, proper controls and restrictions are paramount.
Commented Best: “You cannot just go shopping in the bush for a wild elephant or two to make a quick buck out of elephant-back safaris.
“Of course, although places like the Kruger National Park have a policy of destroying all members of a family group during culls, and one hopes the South African National Parks would not entertain the idea of capturing older animals for training, there is no law to stop this taking place on private land. I have no doubt that it will.
“In Zimbabwe this has already happened. Legislation could be passed to prevent this, but that takes time and unscrupulous people are using this window of opportunity for financial gain.
“Anyone who has ever watched a herd of elephants and can identify with their family way of life would be appalled at any effort to pull them apart, especially for safari purposes.”
But Best pointed out that not all elephant-back safari outfits should be tarred with the same brush as unscrupulous money-makers. The fledgling industry could be a flagship for tourism, if handled correctly.
“The use of elephants in tourism is a sensitive issue. No elephant in use within the industry has been habituated to humans overnight. Trust has grown over the years, making them easy to handle. To capture older animals that have a considerable memory bank and a strong herd bond is a new scenario completely,” said Best.
Is South Africa facing yet another Tuli saga? Do the country’s tourism and conservation efforts really deserve this? Its international image has been soiled by “canned” lion hunting and the outcry over the Tuli elephant scandal. The authorities need to be mindful of recent history and make efforts to introduce strict controls over the use of elephants for tourism purposes.
An impassioned Best wound up our conversation: “Should elephants be thrown to the wolves for financial gain? It is time we realised that by conservation we mean looking after the wildlife for the future, not putting their futures in jeopardy for the greed of man.”
Where are the controls?
It would seem that the South African authorities have not learnt much from the Tuli elephant drama. In early November came the news that an elephant bull had been captured for a commercial tourism operator who wanted to “train” the elephant for use in elephant-back safaris.
The Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (Deat) has largely ignored the pleas of the wildlife unit at the National Council of SPCAs to take steps to introduce strict controls on the use of elephants in tourism. When the incident involving the elephant bull in Limpopo came to light, Deat passed the issue like a hot potato to the provincial department concerned. The department went ahead and issued a permit for the operator to move and keep the elephant without consultation or debate.
Rick Allan, head of the NSPCA’s wildlife unit, is peeved, to say the least. “We are swimming upstream on this issue,” he said. The tourism operator was also trying to sell the idea of capturing young elephants out of the wild and using them for training, on the pretext that there is an over-population of elephants in South Africa and this would save them from having to be culled.
“There are three issues of concern, the first being this idea of capturing wild elephants. The elephants being targeted are in the eight to 14 years age bracket, which is widely considered as being far too old to train. Add to this the emotional damage inflicted on the animals at being removed from a herd environment and you have a potential bomb waiting to explode,” said Allan.
“Secondly, there is the issue of the training of the older elephants. What methods are going to be used? Are we going to have more instances of young elephants being beaten into submission so that a few men can make money from them? Finally, exactly how are these elephants going to be used? Any claim that this type of capture and training for commercial use is in the interests of conservation is stretching the point to almost fairytale proportions.
“Also, what happens when you have a badly trained, 22-year-old male elephant with a tourist on its back coming into musth? The whole thing is crazy,” said Allan. Will it take another public outcry similar to that caused by the Tuli saga to get proper controls implemented? Allan said he dreads to think what may happen in the meantime.
An outfit called Elephants for Africa Forever (Pty) Ltd has drawn up a charter and manual on the domestication and training of South African elephants for safaris and related work, which it is offering for public debate. South Africa already has two operational elephant-back safari businesses and more are on the way. It is clear the issue needs to be debated, and quickly.