© NYTimes
Brilio.net/en - Unemployment can bring everyone down, and the 5,000-kilogram giants are no exception. The logging elephants of Myanmar have recently been exhibiting behaviour similar to that of depression due to a lack of jobs, including weight gain and anxiety as well as increased antsy behaviour.
With a rapidly shrinking rainforest, Myanmar enacted laws that severely limited logging and exporting timber. As the dense jungle is difficult to access, the elephants were used to drag the timber where trucks could not reach. The laws pose a benefit for the rainforest in the long run and are an environmental victory, but the policy change has left the largest captive population of elephants with nothing to do.
The elephants in Myanmar have been accustomed to the rigorous work of dragging giant tree trunks through the sweltering tropical jungle, as its been a job for them for centuries. Now, only working several days a month, the elephants dont know what to do. They become angry a lot more easily, U Chit Sein, 64, whose eight logging elephants now work only a few days a month. There is no work, so they are getting fat. And all the males want to do is have sex all the time.
While transporting logs may be a difficult and dangerous job, it has actually proven beneficial for elephants in the long run. According to a study conducted in 2008, the logging elephants lived far longer than the ones held captive in European zoos, with a median age of 42 versus 19. Not only was the life expectancy longer for the logging elephants, but the infants were being born healthier and with less change of being overweight. The study further proved that elephant babies born in captivity were 15% heavier than those born in the wild.
Surprisingly enough, the logging elephants in Myanmar have been treated better than most of their human counterparts. Since 2011, the United Nations has been reporting systematic human rights violations in a country that was once run by a military dictatorship. While people may have not had much protection, the elephants were always carefully monitored and well maintained. The military government had a strict work code for the gentle giants, with a maximum of 8 hour working days only five days per week. Elephants were assured maternity leave and had a mandatory retirement age of 55. The laws of elephant protection were largely respected, partially because an unhappy elephant can be quite dangerous, especially to its keepers.
Letting the elephants loose in the wild is also not an option, as they often destroy farmers crops in order to forage for the 180 kilograms of food they need daily. Furthermore, there just isnt enough space for all of the elephants to live naturally in the forest. For now, elephant owners are turning to an illegal solution and selling the elephants to Thailand without official permission, where they will be used in the tourism industry.
(Reported by: Ivana Lucic)
(brl/tis)
