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ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS

MONTH: November 2006

A field day over elephant polo

 

JAIPUR--Elephant polo, by most witness accounts, would seem to be among the most unlikely of sports to generate controversy. It is slow-moving, and not televised in bar rooms. Few people watch in person. Fewer still participate, or could afford to, at a World Elephant Polo Association-advertised price of $6,000 per team tournament entry, covering elephant rental, equipment use, officiating, and insurance.
Only the participants are likely to bet on the games.

An October 2005 "international" match in Jaipur, India, between teams of three men from the Lahore Polo Club of Pakistan and three women from the Amby Valley of Germany, ended abruptly when an elephant stepped on the ball. None of the "world class" players had ever before ridden elephants.

Elephant polo in October 2006 nonetheless generated one of the most heated debates in the history of the Asian Animal Protection Network, with more than two dozen participants posting in excess of 70 messages. Few by sports discussion forum standards, that amounted to more messages than there have been either elephant or human participants in any elephant polo tournament held in the past 30 years--or possibly ever, since the origins of the game may be recent, despite claims that it has ancient roots.

Within days the debate "polo-rized" elephant experts and animal experts worldwide, spilling over into The Asian Age, of New Delhi, The Hindu of Chennai, and other mainstream news media.

AAPN, founded by John Wedder-burn of Hong Kong in 1996, has become the leading electronic medium for animal advocacy news and discussion serving China, India, and all points between, also attracting some American and European participation.

"The Maharajahs of Jaipur first played elephant polo in 1975," according to Lokendra Singh of Asian News International, but Jonathan Thompson of the Belfast Telegraph on October 16, 2006 gave a different account.

"Like all good ideas," Thompson wrote, "elephant polo came about as a result of a few too many drinks. In this case it happened at the St. Moritz Tobogganing Club in 1981. Jim Edwards, an English hotelier who runs the famous Tiger Tops hunting lodge in Nepal, hatched the concept with the Scottish adventurer, entrepreneur, and former Olympic bobsled competitor James Manclark."

"There are around 200 serious players now," Edwards told Thompson, "though the elephants won't let us take it too seriously." But the World Elephant Polo Association web site lists only two tournaments, naming fewer than 40 players. Several teams are listed with no named players.

Thompson claimed to have played in a 12-team King's Cup tournament in Thailand before a crowd of 3,000, including attendants who rushed out in mid-game to remove poop from the field.

"The elephants appear to enjoy the game almost as much as their human counterparts," Thompson asserted. "As the three-a-side tournament progresses, they bellow, trumpet and gambol, with a few of them displaying a rudimentary knowledge of the rules by kicking the ball ahead of them before chasing after it."

"There is certainly an understanding of what is going on," agreed John Roberts, 32, who is director of elephants for the host resort. "In fact, they often play games among themselves. The young ones will throw a plastic bag up in the air and to each other, and the older ones will bully them in order to get it."

Before the October 2006 fracas, the only previous AAPN posting about elephant polo was a hyperbolic press release claiming in September 2005 that a Thai tournament had raised $100,000 "for the National Elephant Institute, which provides medical care for the animals and training for elephant handlers."

Thirty elephants and 48 riders were said to be involved.

The flame war started on October 8 when vehement wildlife captivity opponent Shubhobroto Ghosh of Kolkata posted an article by Suman Tarafdar of the Financial Express about an elephant polo match scheduled for November 18 in Jaipur.

Among the players will be Mark Shand, author of the 1992 British best-seller Travels On My Elephant, about a 600-mile elephant trek across India, and founder of a charity called The Elephant Family in 2002.

Shand is also brother of Prince Charles' wife Camilla Parker Bowles. Both Charles and Camilla are foxhunters and captive bird shooters, but Assam television journalist Azam Siddique, a frequent writer of letters to ANIMAL PEOPLE, didn't even mention his relatives in objecting to Shand's alleged promotion of "elephant football, elephant tug-of-war, and other circus-like events" during the Kaziranga Centenary Celebrations in 2005.

Siddique further asserted that Shand has eaten rats "and other wild creatures with some remote tribals of Arunachal Pradesh" in television documentaries; that his book River Dog: A Journey Down The Brahmaputra (2004) misidentified the Assamese as dog-eaters, instead of the Nagas, who live in a neighboring state, and that Shand's 1994 book Queen of the Elephants unwarrantedly glorified Assamese mahout Parbati Barua.

"The reality of this queen was exposed by Mike Pandey (in 2003) when he filmed how a wild elephant was tortured and later killed by Barua and her team," Siddique wrote. A failed attempt to tame a young elephant, the incident was described on page one of the May 2003 edition of ANIMAL PEOPLE. Pandey's film The Vanishing Giants won him his second Ashden Award, better known as a "Green Oscar."

Expressing concern that elephant polo might spread throughout India, leading to more elephant captures and abuse, Ghosh and Siddique drew supporting statements from Zoocheck Canada director Rob Laidlaw; Ambika Shukla, almost as noted an animal advocate in India as her sister Maneka Gandhi; Blue Cross of India chair Chinny Krishna; PETA India director Anuradha Sawhney; and Captive Animals Protection Society campaign manager Craig Redmond.

But most showed little awareness of the actualities of elephant polo, a part-time employment of working elephants whose usual routine is plodding on pavement, bearing tourists through exhaust fumes and traffic, or simply standing, awaiting dwindling numbers of customers, as the Baby Boomers who once rode elephants age, and younger tourists view elephant-riding as socially inappropriate. Elephant polo-playing is the only chance most of the elephants ever have to run on grass, for about 10 minutes of total active game time.

David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust founder Daphne Sheldrick objected from Nairobi, Kenya that the elephants would be "prodded with sharp ankuses" and would play in excessive heat.

That brought a prompt rebuttal from Christine Townend, head trustee of the Help In Suffering animal hospitals and sanctuaries in Jaipur and Darjeeling, India. Townend and Animal Liberation author Peter Singer cofounded the Australian animal rights group Animal Liberation in 1978. Since 2000, Townend has hosted annual elephant care clinics in Jaipur, featured in the September 2001 edition of ANIMAL PEOPLE.

"There will be no ankus used in this alternative elephant polo match," Townend wrote, "the purpose of which is to demonstrate to the 15-20 private companies which hold polo matches in Jaipur every season, and which cannot be prevented at present from holding these matches, that the use of the ankus is redundant and should be abandoned. Indeed, with the support of the Rajasthan government, we have succeeded in having use of the ankus abolished in Jaipur, among many other important welfare measures, including a ban on the elephants working in the summer months during the day, a ban on sick or crippled elephants working, licencing of mahouts, limiting elephants' load to two people, and insisting owners provide shade."

In a follow-up message, Townend deplored "elephants chained on cement developing arthritis and needing exercise more than anything else. I love those elephants," Townend declared, "and I am happy to see them stretch their limbs and muscles as they would in the wild.

"There are 15,000 captive elephants in India," Townend continued, "who can never return to the wild," largely because the wild habitat they once occupied has been logged, cultivated, and/or developed.

"They must be provided with exercise and something to do," Townend said. "It is good to talk about principles, but in my heart, I am more concerned about these beautiful creatures having the space and time to stretch their legs and enjoy themselves together. They kiss each other with their trunks. You can almost see them laughing as they go at a slow lope together across the field."
--Merritt Clifton