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.