Indonesian trainers for South African elephants

Indonesian trainers for South African elephants

By Sophie Pons

BRITS, South Africa (AFP): Nonchalant Indonesian trainers
drive the group of young elephants into a boma, or enclosure, in
the bush north of Johannesburg, oblivious to the stir they are
causing across the world.

They are taming the elephants, the first such program in
Africa, for a company called African Game Services, based at
Hartebeespoort, near Brits, about 50 kilometers (31 miles) north
of Johannesburg.

The program has sparked a row among various animal welfare
organizations in the world: some say it is cruel slavery, while
others praise it as an original way of dealing with the problem
of elephant overpopulation.

The owner of African Game Services, Riccardo Ghiazza, said he
was inspired by Asian traditions to find a new niche for
elephants in a tight market.

He has invited eight "Mahouts", Indonesian master-trainers, to
tame elephants which he has bought from a private reserve in
Botswana and which he will sell to his "usual clients" -- zoos
and animal reserves across the world.

"It is necessary to accustom the animals to captivity, so that
they can accept being approached by, cared for and fed by human
beings," said this tough Italian, who boasts a good reputation in
the world of the "wild animal trade."

After 10 weeks months under the tutelage of these Mahouts,
"Bebe", a four-year-old elephant who carries his 1,500 kilograms
(3,300 pounds) lightly and answers to his name, walks towards
visitors without fear and greedily accepts carrots fed to him by
hand.

Like his 29 companions, this pachyderm was bought from the
Tuli private game reserve in south-east Botswana, which is facing
a severe problem with elephant overpopulation.

For two months the beasts have been living in an open-air
enclosure, which they leave for regular walks. At night they
sleep in chains in a huge stable.

When they become aggressive or stubborn, the Mahouts lock
their feet into a bamboo shackle, as is done Indonesia.

This "ill-treatment" has aroused the anger of the Society for
the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA), which has also
criticized the living conditions of the animals.

The international animal rights group, People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals (PETA), has also mobilized against what they
call this "African slave trade."

PETA activists have chained themselves to railings at South
African embassies in Britain, the United States and Canada in a
direct appeal to President Nelson Mandela "to let baby elephants
go" so they can return to their families.

With 30 years in the animal trade in Africa and Latin America,
Ghiazza has a blunt opinion of the criticism. "There are idiots
everywhere," he says.

As the criticism mounts, three heavy-weight animal rights
groups have put themselves on Ghiazza's side -- the World Wide
Fund for Nature (WWF), the Society for Nature and the
Environment, and the Foundation for Endangered Species.

"Our appraisal of the current operation is that there is no
more cruelty involved in this operation than there is in many
relocation operations of previously wild, free-ranging dangerous
animals," the groups said in a joint statement.

They said this method of training elephants has been used with
success for centuries on Indian elephants.

"We applaud the private reserve owners in this area for
tackling the elephant overpopulation problem by the only means
available to them before the damage to the habitat in this
important wildlife area becomes totally irreversible," the
statement says.

The 70,000-hectare (177,000-acre) Tuli reserve has about 1,000
elephants, many more than it can support.

"These elephants are happy here. It is easy to tell from how
they behave," said Melvyn Myburg, a Johannesburg veterinarian
assigned to monitor African Game Services by an inter-
governmental committee.

After several visits to Hartebeespoort, Myburg has become an
enthusiastic supporter of Ghiazza and his domestication
program.

He is especially pleased that the Italian wants to create a
school for "South African Mahouts," to create a market for
southern Africa's surplus elephants and provide work for locals.

The debate whipped up by the project underlines the problems
of elephants in southern Africa, where people have encroached on
natural areas and game reserves are suffering, having to support
too many of the voracious pachyderms.

Botswana, Zimbabwe and Namibia have already complained that an
overpopulation of elephants in their countries has damaged their
environment and agriculture.

Under pressure from animal activists, South Africa has
recently ended its regular elephant culling exercises, carried
out for years in the Kruger National Park, and has launched a
pilot project to control the fertility of the animals.
About 600,000 elephants live in Africa.