Mahout Perspectives on Asian Elephants and Their Living Conditions

Abstract

Simple SummaryMahouts, often known as elephant handlers, or by other terms, such as oozie in Myanmar, work closely with captive Asian elephants in elephant range countries. This work usually involves taking responsibility for just one elephant. The daily tasks of mahouts can include feeding, cleaning or bathing elephants, treating minor medical conditions, participating in training, and riding elephants in order for them to achieve specific tasks, such as transportation of materials, religious functions, or tourism activities. Because of their close interactions with elephants, mahouts have knowledge of elephants that stretches from the cultural to the behavioral and ecological. In this study, I interviewed mahouts in their own languages with a translator, using a mix of short and open-ended questions. The second kind of questions allowed mahouts to elaborate in as much detail as they wanted on their experience. The methods allowed me to collect perspectives on welfare and the associations with elephants in Nepal. I also asked questions about how long they had worked with elephants and how many elephants they worked with. The mahouts were not a uniform group, with differences in age, experience, and perspectives. The mahouts gave their most extensive comments when discussing elephant welfare, particularly on the use of fenced enclosures versus chains, elephant diet, and interactions with domestic animals. The input of mahouts could be useful for proposing and implementing plans for elephant welfare in range countries.AbstractThe skills, knowledge, and expertise of mahouts have been recognized by organizations and individual managers who are responsible for captive elephants and by academics, where they have been a source of studies from the ethnographic to animal behavior research. In this study, I used semi-structured interviews in local languages to explore individual experiences of mahouts in Nepal. I also investigated perspectives on elephant welfare, including the use of corral (fenced) enclosures. I undertook a further key informant interview in English to gain more discursive perspectives on the topics. Our results revealed that mahouts at the study site are unlikely to come from multi-generational families of mahouts. All mahouts referenced the religious significance of elephants in their country when describing broader local perspectives. Many mahouts explained both positive and negative implications for differing strategies in housing captive elephants, often balanced the competing interests of elephant welfare with their own need for elephants to follow verbal communication, and their responsibility for the safety of the elephants, other staff, and tourists. The fine-balancing perspectives of mahouts, taking both humans and elephants into account, underlines their role as an important source of knowledge of captive Asian elephants in range countries, and their potential role as co-producers of research linked to welfare. This approach could also be of relevance to the welfare of ex-situ Asian elephants.

Influence of handler relationships and experience on health parameters, glucocorticoid responses and behaviour of semi-captive Asian elephants

“…Elephants’ higher success and faster responses to more familiar mahouts suggest they were more active and alert when responding to their own mahout, and therefore disrupted relationships may reduce working efficiency. Mahouts have previously reported that elephants act slowly or even dangerously with other mahouts and that it takes ~3 years to develop an understanding and 5 years to build trust with an elephant ( Hart, 1994 ; Mumby, 2019 ; Srinivasaiah et al, 2014 ). Interestingly, command rate was linked to elephants’ initial responses to commands and not success, suggesting it is important to get an elephant’s attention, but not necessarily to communicate beyond that.…”

Welfare Assessment and Activities of Captive Elephants in Thailand

“…From our survey, mahouts have been with their current elephant for three years on average (range, three months to 20 years, n = 61). In Myanmar, a limited study of mahouts ( n = 10) found the average time with their elephant was 13.2 years, ranging from six months to 30 years [ 83 ]. Ultimately, the welfare of individual elephants is inextricably tied to the experience of its mahout, which unfortunately appears to be declining throughout Asia [ 12 , 83 ].…”

“…In Myanmar, a limited study of mahouts ( n = 10) found the average time with their elephant was 13.2 years, ranging from six months to 30 years [ 83 ]. Ultimately, the welfare of individual elephants is inextricably tied to the experience of its mahout, which unfortunately appears to be declining throughout Asia [ 12 , 83 ]. A study of zoo elephants found that positive keeper attitudes predicted lower mean serum cortisol in elephants [ 18 ].…”

Human interventions in a behavioural experiment for Asian Elephants (Elephas maximus)

“…Eight of the elephants were able to participate in this study (Table 1 ). The elephants spend the majority of time in corrals where they were kept in pairs ( n = 6) or alone ( n = 2) but within visual, auditory, and olfactory contact with at least one other elephant (Mumby 2019 ). Each elephant had a first mahout, who interacts with it throughout the day and is responsible for training and preparation of the elephant to participate in tourism activities (Mumby 2019 ).…”

“…They often work with the same elephant over many years, sometimes even decades (Locke 2011 ). Mahouts are responsible for feeding, cleaning, training, and driving their elephants (Hart 1994 ), in addition to participating in religious ceremonies, tourism activities, and transportation of materials (Mumby 2019 ). The elephants have contact with humans without barriers, and mahouts are physically close to the elephants they work with during training and other daily tasks (Highfill et al 2016 ).…”