A new feature in National Geographic, “Captive Elephants Freed From a Life in Chains highlights EAI’s work in Nepal. Carol tells the magazine that “getting [the elephants] ‘chain-free and pain free’ is a start toward improving the lives of captive elephants across Asia.’”
A new documentary on the work of Carol Buckley and EAI improving elephant welfare throughout Asia has been selected for the 15th annual Wild & Scenic Film Festival.
“Unchained” follows Carol and her team in their quest to enhance captive elephant welfare in Nepal. Using gentle persuasion and showing by example that there is a better way to treat elephants in captivity, Carol takes a phased, pragmatic approach to changing attitudes that relies on winning the buy-in of owners and mahouts (elephant handlers).
Watch the trailer.
Learn more from the Unchained Facebook page.
After being released from chains, Sundar Kali and Oma Kali were finally able to be together, to touch and reassure each other, and move freely for the first time in their lives.
With the holiday season approaching, it is time to start thinking about finding the perfect gifts to share with family and friends. This year, consider giving the gift of APPRECIATION for mahouts by sponsoring an elephant and supporting EAI in the name of your loved ones.
45 DAYS UNTIL CLOSING! We are so grateful for the additional time to raise funds for the elephant paradise. Would you like to personally help these wonderful beings? Every dollar matters. Please donate today. Thank you for your continued support.
Research from the World Wildlife Fund, University of Vermont, and University of Cambridge has shown that African economies are losing millions of dollars in tourism revenue due to elephant poaching. As elephant poaching increases, tourism decreases. According to the article, poachers murder 20,000 – 30,000 African elephants each year. This brutality needs to end.
“Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can’t help them, at least don’t hurt them.” – Dalai Lama
In a fantastic article, Elephant Watch Nepal explores the cruelty elephants endure throughout chained captivity. Elephants are more than a ride for your entertainment — they are living, breathing beings who deserve respect and compassion.
Last year, a video captured the moment Simsar Kali was freed from her chains — after spending 7 years shackled. The actions of Elephant Aid International in Nepal have recently been gaining the attention of media sites, such as One Green Planet.
We cannot believe it has been nearly 2 years since we started building chain free corrals in Sauraha, Nepal. Thanks to your support, 106 elephants have benefited from our Chain Free Means Pain Free program.
“When I look into the eyes of an animal, I do not see an animal. I see a living being. I see a friend. I feel a soul.” – Anthony Douglas Williams
Imagine spending your entire life shackled to the ground — trapped in agony by those who are supposed to care for you. Captive elephants should never be chained. They are sentient beings who deserve respect, autonomy and to be allowed to walk chain free and pain free.
This breathtaking photo taken in Corbett National Park, India, captures the magnificence of a healthy herd of Asian elephants in their natural-habitat home-range.
Earlier this year, Terra Mater Magazine, Austria’s equivalent to National Geographic, sent a writer and photographer to cover Carol’s work in Nepal. Read the article in English or the original German (even if you don’t read German, you may want to look at the wonderful photos).
Many of the elephants used for elephant back safaris suffer from severe nail splits.
Carol and a team of volunteers began EAI’s bi-annual foot trimming in Sauraha this morning. The mahouts’ trimming skill level is measurably improved.
As of yesterday, the Elephant Refuge North America (ERNA) fundraising total is at $871,565.39. Your donations will help make this elephant paradise a reality!
Carol visiting with her Nepali family in Sauraha. From left to right: nanu (a term of endearment for a little girl), Shanti, Raju, Carol and Paspat (who is the elephant supervisor of National Trust for Nature Conservation).
Carol boarding the plane from Kathmandu to Bharatpur on the way to foot trimming in Chitwan.
“Nature’s great masterpiece, an elephant; the only harmless great thing.” — John Donne. But in today’s world, in response to the stress humans place on elephants in the wild and in captivity, elephants act out in ways contrary to their majestic nature.
The Elephant Refuge North America (ERNA) land is an elephant paradise, featuring 850 acres of pastures, lakes, and forests.
And did you know that:
Elephant Aid International sincerely appreciates a generous grant from the DJ&T Foundation in support of our The Lambodhar Prasad Project: Freeing Nepal’s Chain Gang. DJ&T founder Bob Barker is known for his philanthropy on behalf of animals; EAI is delighted to have the foundation’s support for this revolutionary project.
EAI’s Chain Free Means Pain Free project, which frees elephant from chains is the first of its kind in Asia. Honestly I was surprised to learn that such an effort had never before been attempted for the thousands of captive-held elephants used in the tourist industry all over Asia.
Solar powered high tensile wire fencing is a simple and relatively inexpensive solution to the decades-long practiced of chaining elephants to a stake in the ground.
When our Chain Free Means Pain Free project was completed in Nepal in April 2015, I breathed a sigh of relief and felt flush with appreciation for what we’d accomplished.
It was not an easy project, working in remote areas, many times with no means to transport fencing materials, except on our backs. We crossed rivers, hiked through miles of jungle and dealt with hostile locals who saw the areas selected by the government for elephant corrals as their domain.
And then there were the naysayers, people incapable of embracing change, who made progress slower than necessary.
But through all the trials and tribulations, downpours, leaky roofs, river crossings, miles hiked in the searing heat and skeptics, we prevailed, creating corrals for 54 elephants and releasing them into their personal chain-free sanctuaries.
Without exception, introductions to the corrals were a phenomenal success, including for a few adult males with long tusks. Why not? The elephants clearly understood the freedom they were being given. Freedom and autonomy are great healers for a soul enslaved for decades. Each, without hesitation or concern, melted into the lush habitat that was their new home.
Mahouts feared change
Before their elephants were released from chains, the mahouts lost sleep, fearing that their elephant would take advantage of the freedom and become feral.
The consistency of the their fear surprised me. I naively assumed that mahouts knew elephant behavior and understood that freedom from chains reduces stress, which results in the elephants relaxing and becoming more cooperative. But they thought the opposite.
It was from this experience, repeated with every mahout, that I learned how little mahouts actually know about elephant psyche and behavior.
Hours spent in the hattisar (elephant stable) with the mahouts and the elephants taught me that most mahouts do not recognize an elephant’s most characteristic behaviors, such as playing, socializing, bonding and grieving. Mahout knowledge is limited to how to control an elephant and avoid getting killed. So much of what they think they know is superstition and folklore.
The first time the mahouts observed an adult elephant playing in her new corral they panicked. The mahouts wanted to stop her, control her, because they thought she was becoming aggressive. Awareness of an elephant’s emotional life or physical suffering is not something they are taught. Even minor physical problems are ignored until they become serious and require veterinary attention.
Different approach to unchaining pays off
As result of the time I spent observing the mahouts with their elephants, I realized I needed to approach the unchaining process differently. I needed to teach the mahouts about their elephants—their behavior, fears, likes and dislikes—and explain why unchaining affects elephants in a positive way.
This approach paid off. Even though some mahouts remained skeptical, most felt more confident in my promise that their relationship with their elephant would get better, not worse.
No success without sustainability
Another lesson I’ve learned though our Chain Free Means Pain Free project is that we must build sustainability into foreign projects.
It is not enough to provide a great product with stellar results if the locals are not able or willing to sustain it.
I returned to Nepal eight months after completing 54 chain-free corrals to find that few were actually still functioning and being used. I was devastated.
It seemed incomprehensible that minor repairs were not even attempted. In some cases, fully functioning corrals housed elephants on chains!
But I knew there had to be a solution. I simply would not give up. Sustainability is the measure of success and I was determined to keep these elephants off chains.
EAI hires Nepali manager
Last November, thanks to generous underwriting from supporter Donna Marshall, EAI hired a manager for our projects in Nepal.
Kulendra Kunwar, a native Nepali, was well known to EAI prior to being hired. He’d volunteered in the spring of 2015 during corral construction at the largest hattisar in Khorsor. He proved to be a valuable asset then and the perfect manager for our project now.
In just a few short months, thanks to Kulendra’s ability to repair corrals and educate and motivate the mahouts, 14 out of 15 hattisars now have corrals that are fully functional.
Of these 14 hattisars, all but two keep their elephants chain free 24/7. Those two keep their elephants chain free during daylight hours but, due to fear of the area’s poisonous king cobra snakes and tigers, the elephants are chained close to the home fires of the mahout housing at night.
New mahout housing means chain-free elephants
There is an easy solution for the two hattisars (Sukivar and Khoria Mohan) that fear the poisonous snakes and tigers.
Currently, the mahout housing—a simple two-room wooden shack, outhouse and outdoor cooking area—is several hundred yards from the corrals.
If we raise the funds to build mahout housing adjacent to the corrals, the elephants will be left off chains 24/7.
Our goal is to raise $16,500 for improvements at the two hattisars. As soon as the funds are raised, housing in both hattisars can be built and the elephants can once again be left chain free 24/7. If you would like to donate, you can do so here.
I am quite the optimist, dogged about my dreams. Hard work and seemingly impossible challenges don’t scare me off, although I do wonder why some things have to be so difficult. Then I remember that there is Nepali time and there is U. S. time, polar opposites in many ways. But there is never a time to give up.
Please join me in continuing to dream the dream that releases elephants from chains, reunites loved ones and changes culture to benefit captive-held elephants and the people who care for them.
Another predawn awakening, like a recurring dream.
I’m woken abruptly from a deep sleep by the heart wrenching cries of a suffering elephant. All I can do is swing open my window and yell into the pitch black night, “Hatti la na pita!” (Don’t hit the elephant!). My plea echoes through the darkness, landing on deaf ears.
It is not yet dawn, the time when most elephants savor their sleep. My heart clinches when I hear the too familiar crack of a bamboo stick across the hide of an elephant slave.
I try to block the sound and associated pain from my ears but I cannot. The reality and degree of suffering experienced by captive-held elephants in Chitwan National Park is unconscionable.
If it were not for a drive to improve the lives of the elephants used in Chitwan National Park, admittedly I would never come back to this place. The air is perpetually thick with the sights and sounds of elephant suffering.
The apathy among tourists and owners alike is mind-boggling. Both the mahouts and the elephants in their care are merely money-making machines, no more.
The elephants’ day begins before sunrise and ends after most tourists are in their rooms preparing for sleep.
Before the rooster crows, the chained elephants are roused from their slumber and forced by threat of physical punishment to eat, drink and be readied for safari rides for the hundreds of tourists who visit Chitwan National park every day of the year.
The elephants’ food consists of cuchi—rice wrapped in mildewed, dehydrated rice hay—so unpalatable they must be beaten to eat it. The mahouts will strike them repeatedly with bamboo sticks until they have eaten.
Mel Kali—the lucky one
In the far distance I hear the familiar trumpet call of Mel Kali. She is one of the lucky elephants in Nepal.
Mel Kali was retired two years ago. She is the only retired elephant in Nepal. As a result of her advanced age—72—and near-death experience two years ago, Mel Kali is finally allowed to live a pseudo-elephant life, free to wander the national park free of riders and the continual domination of her mahouts.
Abuse woven into the fabric
Many tourists come to Chitwan National Park for elephant entertainment, but I come because of the elephant suffering. To experience their pain and not make an effort to help seems unconscionable.
It is not possible for me to return to my relatively cushy life in the US and forget the elephants’ pain. Their cries tear at my heart. Their incarceration and treatment boggle my mind. It seems like a dream, but it is reality for the elephants 24/7, 365 days a year, for their entire lives. It is an elephant slave camp.
When I am in Nepal it is my policy to stay only at guest houses that do not own an elephant. It is my way of not contributing to the exploitation and abuse.
But it is impossible to avoid the abuse completely; it is woven into the fabric of Chitwan National Park.
At all hours of the morning and evening, the haunting cries of elephants echo across the landscape of dozens of tourist hotels. They live in filthy stables, experience continual harassment and beatings and work from sun-up to sundown carrying heavy loads of riders seeking a fun day in the national park. I cannot help but absorb the feelings of despair and pain the elephants experience. How can the tourists, elephant owners, conservation organizations and locals be oblivious to such obvious suffering? What has become of the human race that we are so insensitive to the cries of others?
Progress is slow but steady
Hatti la na pita—do not hit the elephant¬—were the first words I learned after arriving in Nepal five years ago. A phase lost on most. But now, all these years later, the mahouts are familiar with my request. Although they do not comprehend why I ask that they not hit their elephants, out of respect for my work, most refrain from hitting their elephant in my presence.
But seeing the abuse is not the only way to sense an elephant’s suffering. I am now hyper-sensitive to the sharp crack of the bamboo stick, the body language of an abused elephant, the demanding guttural commands of the mahouts and the oppressive energy in the elephant slave camps.
After spending more than two dozen months in Nepal working closely with our Nepali partners to improve elephant welfare, I am discouraged by the slow process.
But I must remember that we have succeeded in influencing many mahouts to treat their elephants more kindly; educated private and government owners alike about the welfare needs of elephants; and, most recently, freed 56 captive-held elephants from chains by creating chain-free corrals. The lives of these elephants are seriously improved.
And we will not stop until all elephants in Nepal are treated and fed properly, and are living chain-free.
Caring for male elephants in captivity is a challenge at best.
Attempts to provide a quality of life within the parameters dictated by their captivity produce poor results. Their size, natural tendency toward dominance and drive to breed, combined with their innate wildness, is a recipe for disaster in a captive situation.
Males are especially dangerous when they are in musth, a natural biological function when testosterone levels increase. During their annual musth season, captive-held males become too aggressive to approach and stop responding to their mahouts.
EAI respects the true nature of each elephant and would prefer that no elephant live in captivity. But elephants whose lives are forever altered by captivity need our help.
Lambodhar Prasad: In musth, out of water
We were building chain-free corrals when Lambodhar Prasad came into musth. He was unapproachable. His front wrists were chained together, secured to a large wooden timber that was buried 10 feet deep to prevent his escape. He had no shelter from the hot sun, the seasonal storms that pellet him with golf ball-size hail or the frightening earthquake that devastated entire villages in Nepal earlier this month.
And he had no access to water to drink unless the mahouts brought it to him.
Because of his aggressive state, mahouts could not get close enough to Lambodhar Prasad to give him water, which concerned them and made them anxious to find a solution. Their only option was to offer Lambodhar Prasad water in a large metal cooking pot.
Out of trunk’s reach, several mahouts struggled to push the heavy pot close to Lambodhar Prasad with a long bamboo pole. A thick handmade rope was tied to one handle of the pot in order to pull it back, out of Lambohdar Prasad’s reach, after he finished drinking.
But things did not go as planned. Lambodhar Prasad was irritable, not in a mood to cooperate. He grabbed the pot with his trunk and before the mahouts could yank it away, he crushed it under his foot.
The mahouts were out of ideas and had no resources to solve the problem, so they came to EAI for help.
A simple solution
An immediate solution was devised, simple but effective.
EAI volunteers headed to town to buy a replacement cooking pot/water dish. We purchased an electric water pump and water hose and hired a plumber to hook it up to the existing well where the mahouts bathe and wash their cloths and dishes. The Chitwan National Parks Department provided a large water storage tank as a back-up for when the electricity is out, which in Nepal is more often then not.
While the plumber was installing the pump, connecting the water hose and setting up the water tank, the mahouts wasted no time wiring the pump at a nearby building.
There are no inspections required or codes for electric and plumbing work at the hattisar. You just do it!
In a couple of hours our solution was up and running. The mahouts were relieved and excited about the prospect of being able to water Lambodhar Prasad and give him a bathe as well.
Then came the moment to test out the new watering system.
As suggested, the mahouts filled the water pot before maneuvering it in front of Lambodhar Prasad. He was seriously thirsty and drank hurriedly for several minutes. But as he quenched his thirst, his drive for dominance surfaced.
The muscles in his face tightened as he grabbed for the pot in an act of defiance. The mahouts recognized his attitude shift and pulled the pot out of his reach. The pot lived to provide water for another day.
Learn how you can support EAI’s pilot project to build Lambodhar Prasad his own steel pipe corral.
Mahouts know we care
Every effort in Nepal is unnecessarily difficult due to limited or nonexistent resources, expertise and motivation. Generations of mahouts have grown to believe that nothing can or will be done to make their job easier or the lives of the elephants in their care better. They have stopped asking for help, or perhaps they never started.
But now, because you, our supporters, have enabled EAI to offer new resources, options and solutions, the mahouts know that there are people who truly care about them and the welfare of their elephants. They have begun to ask for help. They have begun to believe that when they ask, their concerns will be heard and their need for assistance will be answered.
The most encouraging shift we have observed is that mahouts are beginning to speak up for their elephants. Improvements in elephant welfare can be encouraged from the outside but true sustainability comes from within. The mahouts are the key to improved elephant welfare in Nepal.
EAI is honored to partner with them. Learn how you can support mahouts and their elephants.
Chitwan National Park’s annual rhino count is underway.
50 government elephants, from all over Nepal, take part in the survey. Elephants and their mahouts fan out through the jungle, covering Chitwan National Park from east to west. This is the most effective way to gain an accurate count of the rhino population in the park.
The elephants benefit because they spend a couple of weeks inside the jungle, day and night. Being immersed in their natural habitat is rejuvenating.
In preparation for the count, the elephants gather at two central hattisars–Khorsor and Sauraha, the two hattisars where we completed our chain free corrals last week.
Four boarders arrived at Khorsor yesterday. The scene was mesmerizing. Thanks to our chain-free corrals, families were reunited.
Simsar Kali and her mother were as one, floating peacefully, side by side, chain free. Tumor Kali was also with them, a threesome of chain-free compatibility.
Young Amaltari Gaj was also in elephant heaven. He and his mother grazed peacefully, chain free, a tearful reunion of joy.
Change is happening!
Below: Mom, daughter and a friend reunited when mom visited from another hattisar.
This release was a surprise to all of us and the reason we build a chain-free corral for each elephant, even if we are told the elephant will remain on chains.
You just never know what will happen tomorrow. Changing minds, changing culture!
Yesterday was a day of celebration for EAI and all who support our work. In addition to the work over the past year and a half, culminating in the release of tens of elephant from chains, it was the day you could actually feel the consciousness at the Khorsor hattisar shift.
Without prompting, Puja Kali’s mahouts released her from chains.
Earlier in the week, mahouts insisted that Puja Kali could not be released from chains due to her history of aggression. But they brainstormed and decided that if three mahouts were present when they approached Puja Kali, the situation would be safe.
Without any further discussion they released her from chains.
This is a seriously significant turn of events. It is the first time we have witnessed the mahouts trouble shooting a problem, putting the elephants’ needs first.
The mahouts deserve all the credit!
Ganesha and her young calf Kasara Gaj have lived on chains their entire lives.
Captive elephants are wild animals and an endangered species. The tradition of chaining disregards the trauma this practice causes.
But things are changing.
Thanks to our Chain Free Means Pain Free program, Ganesha and her calf will be soon be released from chains.