Captive elephants in temples, festivals, zoos, circuses and other types of human use often have health issues, such as foot problems and joint inflammations. Additionally, training and handling of elephants is usually based on the “breaking the will” approach, in which the elephant is controlled by inflicting pain and fear. In addition to the suffering experienced by elephants, the situation also claims human lives every year, because painful experiences are one of the main reasons for the aggressive attacks by captive elephants at mahouts and other people.

Many of the responsible government officials, private elephant owners and mahouts do genuinely care about the well-being of elephants. The root cause of the problems is their lack of knowledge on other methods of training and management. Elephant-friendly and efficient methods for training and management have been developed, based on animal behaviour science. But expertise on them is scattered around the world, unavailable to an average mahout or elephant owner.

Elephant Experts is an international non-profit organization that works to bridge this gap. We provide advice and courses on science-based, elephant-friendly practices of training, handling and management, delivered by selected international experts. The first country in which we have tested this approach is Nepal, where we have worked since 2005. Funded by WWF and WSPA among others, we have created constructive collaboration with mahouts, elephant owners, local and national government, the tourist industry and NGO’s, all of whom have been very welcoming to the improved methods of captive elephant training and management, once they have seen them in action and experienced the benefits, such as increased obedience, calmness and learning rate in the elephants. At present, the Nepal programme is at the stage on which the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation (the government body in Nepal responsible for elephants) has asked us to take the lead in planning and implementing a full transition in Nepal to modern, elephant-friendly methods of training and management. The key elements will include establishing a system of vocational training for mahouts, developing elephant-friendly forms of tourism and enacting legislation on elephant welfare. At the same time, we will continue our research programme to develop new tools for veterinarians, scientists and others to detect chronic pain and other health issues in elephants, in order to better recognize the elephants that need medical treatment. Another line of research we are working on involves research into elephant cognition, especially developing advanced methods for objectively measuring emotional states in elephants.

From the beginning, the aim has been to not only work in Nepal, but to utilize that experience for consequently making similar advancements available in other elephant range countries. We have received requests from several Asian countries to start similar collaborations. As India is one of the most important countries in terms of Asian elephants, we are giving the requests from India the highest priority. We are currently starting discussions with several stakeholders about potential collaboration in bringing meetings and courses available for elephant owners, officials and mahouts in Karnataka, and in potential collaboration in research into elephant cognition and health.