Elephant trainers in Limpopo are planning to capture 24 young elephants from the wild and train them for elephant-back safaris, despite two near-fatal incidents involving elephant rides over the Christmas period.
A tourism outfit called Elephants for Africa Forever (Efaf) has applied for a licence from the magistrate’s office in Tzaneen to train 24 wild-caught elephants for rides. A licence has to be obtained and renewed annually before conservation officials will grant permits for capturing the elephants.
Efaf says it plans to capture elephants aged between eight and 14 years from areas where there is an overpopulation or during culling operations. Critics say removing a few elephants will not solve overcrowding and the exercise is nothing more than a risky money-making venture.
“The incidents over Christmas show that elephants in that age group are already dangerous, and the dangers will be compounded if they are wild,” says Rick Allan, senior inspector at the wildlife unit of the National Council of SPCAs (NSPCA). The magistrate’s office has asked for the unit’s input on whether Efaf should be granted a licence.
Efaf is a partnership between Zimbabwean tourism and hunting operators and ZZ2, a giant tomato farm near Tzaneen that is diversifying into conservation. ZZ2 was in the news last year because of a heated pay dispute with its workers over minimum wages.
The kingpin of the venture is Rory Hensman, a Zimbabwean who has trained 45 elephants in the past 15 years. Twelve elephants trained by him are based at Kapama game reserve in Hoedspruit, where one of the Christmas tragedies occurred.
A ranger walking alongside elephants with tourists on their backs tried to divert an 18-year-old bull from eating a tasty green bush. The elephant gored him, breaking his pelvis.
This was not the first mishap at Kapama. Shortly after Hensman’s group arrived at Kapama in 2002, a sound technician working on a BBC film was tusked. Interestingly, in both incidents, the elephants left off the attack as soon as their victims stopped screaming.
In the second Christmas incident, a South African couple riding elephants in Zambia were badly injured when their mount bolted, running under a tree that swept them to the ground.
Neither Kapama nor Hensman are cowed by the incidents. “They will make us more careful and understanding,” says Hensman.
Efaf has drawn up a manual and charter for the treatment of elephants-in-training that were the subject of a controversial workshop late last year. Representatives of pro-wildlife utilisation groups and the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism said the objective was to define national policy on elephant training.
Animal welfare groups, including the NSPCA, were not included. Allan points out that taking young elephants from wild herds for domestication is a sticking point, particularly in the wake of the Tuli elephant debacle.