The plaintive cry echoes off the surrounding trees in the
early morning sunlight. Khun Eet has been awake since just before the sun
came up, and he’s about to set off into the jungle to begin cutting banana
trees to feed his charge. It may be early but, for Khun Eet, it’s the start
of another happy day doing the job he loves the most.
Kittipong "Eet" Pinket is a kwan chang, or
"mahout," and he doesn’t want to be anything else. He has been with his
beloved Wanpen for seven years, and sees himself being with her for the rest
of their lives. Wanpen is a 21-year-old female Asian elephant who earns her
keep by allowing between three and ten tourists every day to sit on her back
for a trek along a forest trail.
The couple — not exactly a "couple", but mahouts often
don’t have time for other relationships — live in Koh Chang Elephant Camp,
on Phuket. This small, friendly camp has seven staff and only four
elephants. Eet says that the place is like a close family; everyone working
there is content, and they all love their jobs. The elephants don’t work too
hard — it’s essential for them to exercise, and trekking is an ideal way to
do this — and they enjoy the company of two gibbons that run freely around
the camp, entertaining guests with their antics.
Eet was born in a small village in the province of
Ranong. He is 29 years of age, and has lived on Phuket for a number of
years. As are most Thais who have uprooted themselves from surrounding
provinces to come to work on Phuket, Eet is still dedicated to his parents.
He goes home to see them whenever there’s a public holiday. His mother and
father, and his grandmother and grandfather before them, have been training
elephants all their lives, so Eet practically had the giant beasts as
brothers and sisters. He has never been afraid of them.
The quietly spoken, gentle young man tells me that he
left school at the age of 12, and went straight to work learning how to
train pachyderms. The whole family helped with his training, and, by the age
of about 15, Eet was himself able to tame a two-year-old female elephant.
Males are a different story. They are usually kept near their place of
birth, since they regularly cause havoc when they go into musth — a
period when they want to mate and can’t control their actions. "When a male
is in musth," says Eet, "he doesn’t even recognize his mahout. The crazed
animal can only think of one thing and, if they can’t find a female, they
break free of their chains and rampage. Many mahouts I know have been killed
by their own elephant, unable to control the male in this state.
"We don’t bring male elephants to Phuket to train in the
trekking camps, as we have had bad experiences with them. It would be unfair
to put tourists at risk with a male elephant, so all the ones you see here
in the camps are female."
An elephant of two years is taught by her mahout to do
basic things such as turn left, turn right, and sit down. The mahouts use a
special language during training — both spoken and physical in nature. A
little squeeze behind the ears means keep walking; a slap on the rear means
sit down; and raising your right arm up in the air means go up on hind legs.
Meua translates as "come here", and oi! as "carry on". Touch
is also essential to the relationship between man and beast, with the mahout
becoming so familiar with his elephant that he knows every inch of her
enormous body.
Like all mahouts, Eet carries a takoh at all
times. This is a metal hook used for disciplining the elephant. "If we
didn’t use a takoh," says Eet, "it would be impossible to train the
elephant. The animal’s skin is over an inch thick, so a prod from a human
hand wouldn’t even be felt. If you are going to get your elephant to do as
you say, you need some form of discipline. It’s not cruel — it’s equal to
slapping a child gently on the back of the legs."
Being a mahout isn’t easy, but a healthy dose of passion
for what you do means that Eet has the kind of lifestyle he feels is
perfect: "I never get bored. I don’t have a girlfriend or a wife, but I’m
happy. I love Wanpen and I love working out in the jungle with the wind
blowing in my hair.
"I meet people from all over the world, and I’ve learned
a lot of English doing this job." He laughs. "So now I can communicate and
find out about life in other countries. I also enjoy teaching people about
elephants and about life in the jungle. In the evening, us mahouts sit up
here and eat together. We tell stories of the day’s events, and laugh until
we’re tired. Sanook mahk mahk.
"I get a night off now and then, and I go down to Kata or
Karon with my friends and drink beer. Sometimes I go to karaoke and spend
the night singing and laughing. I have to get up early though, so I don’t
stay out too late if I can help it." He usually goes to bed around 9pm.
An elephant sleeps just two or three hours a night. The
rest of the day is devoted to eating. Yes, eating. All day and into the
night. The only time the huge vegetarian isn’t eating is when it’s taking
visitors for a ride. Even then, it’ll try to snatch a snack as it rumbles
along tiny forest paths. Depending on the size of the animal, a single
elephant needs between 150-400 kilos of fruit a day.
"I get up at 5am and make sure Wanpen has plenty of water," Eet says.
"She needs more than 150 litres a day.
Emergency for Thailand’s Elephants
The situation among pachyderms in Thailand is verging on
a serious crisis. Fortunately, however, organizations all over the country
are being set up in the attempt to save these beautiful and intelligent
creatures.
As always, funds are in short supply, so ideas are
constantly being bandied about in the search for new ways to generate income
for the cause.
Thailand has approximately 2,000 elephants in the wild
and 3,000 in captivity. (In the past there were more than 100,000, both wild
and domestic.) One major pressure on the population of elephants is the
destruction of their natural habitat — 50 years ago, 60 percent of Thailand
was covered by forest; now, mainly due to illegal logging, only 20 percent
remains (as little as 12 percent, according to even more pessimistic
estimates). There are few places left for wild elephants to live, and even
little chance of returning unemployed captive elephants back to the wild.
Wild male elephants are sometimes shot for their tusks, and the females for
their babies. Other elephants die when, in desperation, they raid farmers’
crops and are either shot or poisoned.
Traditionally these huge animals were used to move logs
from place to perform heavy labour such as house construction. In 1989,
however, logging was banned across the Kingdom, so, unless elephants are
employed in trekking camps, there is nothing else for them to do. In many
cities across the country, mahouts end up pacing the streets with their
charges, charging tourists to feed them bananas, just to survive.
Mahouts often cannot afford the medical bills for their
elephant, so again, unless both animal and keeper are under the care of a
camp, illness often goes untreated. As many as 100 elephants die
unnecessarily in Thailand every year.
The Elephant Help Foundation was set up by Siam Safari
Nature tours and the Dusit Laguna Hotel, here on Phuket, in November 1998.
Primarily an elephant welfare and conservation organization, EHF has managed
to successfully fund a sister project called the Elephant Mobile Clinic for
several years. A specialist elephant veterinarian from Siam Safari is now
able to respond to calls all over the island and surrounding region. He has
already treated hundreds of sick animals
Siam Safari, most active in the work of EHF, get no
government assistance with the project. They can usually afford to offer
initial free treatment and some medicine, but have to resort to asking the
elephant’s owner to pay if further treatment is necessary. Siam Safari raise
funds by alerting visitors to the situation while they are on treks and from
selling souvenirs and T-shirts.
An adoption facility is available for US$1 per day.
Anyone wishing to make a donation or help in some other way can call Malin
(Siam Safari) at 076 280 116 or Manita (Dusit Laguna) at 076 324 324. To
contact the vet, send an e-mail to info@elephant-mobile-clinic.org.
To read more about EHF, visit www.elephanthelp.org.
You can visit Siam Safari Nature Tours in Soi Yod Sane, on Chao
Fah Road (on the right, just before Chalong round about going south).
