Working elephant breeding centre

Once there, we had 20 minutes before we were leaving again to visit the elephant breeding centre a few kilometres away. I thought this must be a conservation project, but it turned out to be a government-owned centre that breeds elephants specifically to work. In the visitor centre, I learned that Nepal has 216 working elephants in captivity, and only an estimated 112 wild elephants. When I asked Laxman if anything was being done to increase the wild population, he said no.

The breeding centre was set up by the Nepali government in 1986. Prior to that, working elephants were not bred in captivity because a female in calf had to be laid off from work for between three and four years, which was costly. Also, there were plenty of young elephants available in the wild to capture and train for work. With numbers in the wild dwindling, the breeding centre was established to produce more working elephants. Since its inception, 43 calves have been born at the centre.

Elephants are herbivorous animals that usually graze in the morning and evening and spend the hottest part of the day resting and playing in the shade. Captive elephants have restricted freedom and no independent grazing time. Mahoots release them from their shackles at around 11am, take them out to forage, and bring them back to the stables at around 5pm, when they are shackled again. The elephants themselves carry the fodder, vines, branches, and grasses collected by the mahouts. These form the basis of their diet. They are given them to eat at night, along with rice, molasses, and salt. 

We watched the mother and baby elephants in their stables and waited for the mahouts to come and take them out to work. Laxman said it would make me feel better about the way they were treated. It didn't!Read more