Doing what we can to keep our elephants happy and healthy

Mostly you see the playful antics and social activities of our elephants while they are out and about roaming around the ENP. But there is much more going on to benefit them behind the scenes.

Our resident rebel Faa Sai always keeps us on our toes. Here she enjoys one of our enrichment toys.

Two of our most important and rewarding ongoing efforts are the Positive Reinforcement Training Program and Enrichment Program. Both of these programs aim to help relieve stress in a potentially stressful situation.

Thanks to positive reinforcement training, HOPE our bull in musth can have his feet worked on safely.

The majority of our elephants here at ENP have had their spirits broken at a very young age and had always been managed with force and intimidation. As a result, they feel very nervous when someone tries to touch vulnerable body parts like eyes, ears, tail, bum or feet. Before positive reinforcement training, treating injuries or taking blood samples was a very dangerous affair, causing much stress for the elephant. Usually the elephant had to be restrained. Commands were shouted repeatedly adding to the confusion. As we do not agree with using excessive force on the elephants in our care, if the situation became too stressful with no cooperation from them, we would have to abandon the attempt.

Step one in trunk wash behaviour training. Keeping the trunk up and allowing saline to be put in – then holding the trunk up until asked to  bring it down.

Jungle Boy participates in the final step in training trunk wash behaviour. Asking the elephant to release the water into a receptacle.

Many of you may already be familiar with Positive Reinforcement Training. To put it simply, the aim of this training is to establish mutual trust and cooperation between the trainer and elephant without using any kind of force or intimidation. The training is done at a ‘training wall’ so that there is a barrier between the humans and the elephant. This barrier keeps the participants on both sides safe. The sole purpose of this training is to be able to perform any kind of husbandry or medical procedures safely. At this time about 20 of our elephants are being trained with the positive reinforcement method. Our goal is for all of the herd to be trained in this manner.

Intuition, understanding body language, patience, trust and BANANAS … LOTS of bananas … given for the correct behaviors are key factors. The reward has to be worth ‘working’ for, so ripe bananas(cut into small pieces) are a necessity for the training sessions. We are always working within the limits of our banana supply.

The elephants in the training program are at different stages of learning and/or successfully presenting the behaviors. Our young elephants who have not had their spirits broken are especially quick learners. Most all of them are proficient with the trunk wash, which is a difficult behavior to establish but necessary to test for TB.

Hope, whose spirit has not been broken, in full musth is allowing Darrick to gently wipe his temporal area thanks to positive reinforcement training.

Hope, Jungle Boy and Chang Yim’s eagerness to participate highlights the success of this method of training. Being in the bull yards allows them the freedom to walk away if they are not interested. But – they stay and complete their training sessions. Hope is currently in full musth and still can be trained and treated with full cooperation.

We are very grateful to Carol Buckley of Elephant Aid International for the introduction of target training to ENP. Tony Verhulst, an elephant keeper from Belgium also shared with us his style of target training during his three month stay with us. A big thanks goes to Dr. Gerardo Martinez, a vet and animal trainer from Africam Safari in Puebla Mexico who allowed us to use his training wall design and helped us adapt it to fit the needs of our geriatric elephants.

A good toy can cause anyone to lose their cool and just have fun. Here Jungle Boy is oblivious to the females in the background acting  like a calf with the jingly balls.

Enrichment serves many purposes which include alleviating boredom, creating an element of surprise and encouraging foraging. Our elephants are free to roam and socialize 8 hours a day, but the rest of the time they are in the shelters. They are housed with their friends or family members which is a comfort and they are given a food ration each evening as well. They sleep around 4 hours a night. When not eating, sleeping or communing with their shelter mates, boredom can set in. This is where the enrichment comes in handy.

Here is one of our amazing enrichment creations!

Our dedicated volunteers working hard for the elephants!! It takes so much time to build, but so little time to destroy….

Our two week volunteers work alongside a longer term volunteer creating various enrichment designs. Five shelters are done a day with a rotating schedule so that the enrichment does not become predictable and therefore no longer ‘enriching’. Constantly coming up with new ideas and making them challenging enough for an elephant is not an easy task – But – the payoff is great. The enrichment team are allowed to go observe when the elephants return to their shelter and see how they respond to their ‘toys’. Each elephants responds differently, some tear right into it while others sample a bit of everything, savouring it slowly.

Little Dok Mai enjoys coming back to a surprise in her shelter.

Enrichment is really helpful in that it gives a rebellious elephant like our Faa Sai a reason to look forward to returning to her shelter at the end of the day. Quite often Faa Sai decides that she is running the show and defies the mahouts – no matter how much she is coerced with food – and refuses to go to back. To help with this situation Faa Sai’s ‘bedroom’ is decked out semi regularly like a mini surprise party awaiting her arrival. If we did this every day it would no longer be exciting, just expected. So, now she is always looking forward to getting back to her room in hopes that there is an enrichment game awaiting. As a result, she has become much more cooperative in going back to the shelter.

Hansa and her mom Mae Pon enjoy a stuffed tire. We never put tires in a shelter with young elephants overnight.

Something to come back to… sometimes, even for elephants presentation makes things more exciting.

Sir Hope LOVES stuffed tires!!

Tilly reaches high for a kettle filled with greens.

Enrichment is not just about food. In fact, we try to not put too many sweet fruits in for enrichment. We try to utilize fallen tree branches, interesting scents, cardboard boxes free from tape and staples, baskets, logs, elephant safe toys and tires. Making enrichment brings out the artist, inventor and gymnast in the volunteers who are doing the building and designing. We try to make something that the elephant can have fun destroying and will go back to throughout the night.

Labour of LOVE…. dedicating their days to benefit the elephants.

Because we love elephants and are dedicated to making their lives as happy as possible, we are honoured to work hard – FOR THEM – doing everything we can to keep them entertained and content.