Mahouts

Oleh Jerry

they want bananas and sugar canes. Their mahouts are sitting on them By 4.bp.blogspot.com
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MYSORE: Dodda Masti, the mahout of howdah elephant Arjuna, belongs to the fourth generation of his family that is into the Dasara assignment. A few years ago, the fifth generation entered the profession, with his second son Sannappa becoming a kavadi. As it turns out, watching baby elephants play in the surf isn’t as innocent as it sounds. Sarah Blaine of mahouts.org explains it like this, “[Baby elephants] are forced into the sea to amuse tourists and a nail is used to make them comply.” Guided by their Indonesian mahouts, they trek alongside rivers, over rough terrain and deep into the rainforest in an area that is home to numerous endangered species, from orangutans to tigers, but which has suffered devastating deforestation in recent years. On the one hand mahouts and kaavadis at Mathigodu elephant camp have boycotted their duties and are protesting against the arrest of one of their colleagues and on the other hand, the elephants at the camp have gone on rampage and have damaged kitchen and BANGALORE, Nov 25 2011 (IPS) - As the number of captive elephants grows to 35 percent of the wild population of the world’s largest land-dwelling mammal, elephant trainers, or mahouts, find themselves just as chained to hardships as their charges. The vast majority of about 210 elephants used for tourist treks on Phuket at 30 camps are female, he said. ''It's accepted that mahouts with male elephants need to isolate their animals in the jungle once the telltale signs of musth approaching become .

A housing project for a 100 elephants and their Mahouts (caretakers), Hathigaon (or elephant village) is situated at the foothill of the Amber Palace and Fort near Jaipur. The design strategy first involved structuring the landscape that had been Coimbatore: They handle the largest animals on the land, but find it hard to handle their lives, their loneliness in the jungles and separation from their families. The mahouts of kumki elephants in Masinagudi earn Rs 13,000 a month, but hardly know how to IT WOULD be hard for a 45-year-old mahout from Surin to give up his precious cow elephant - but that might be necessary if a new wildlife-protection law is enacted. "I would lose my mind. It would be terrible for me," Watcharapong Mohom, who has been But add a cute baby, and tourists flock to pet and feed the grey-brown giants, making the plodding pachyderms more of an investment than a curse for modern mahouts working in Thailand, one of Asia's top holiday destinations. With logging banned in 1989 .