Author: Matt Davis / Source: Big Think
- Myanmar’s logging industry has a very particular kind of employee: elephants.
- While many captive elephants are subjected to horrible treatment, Myanmar’s logging elephants live twice as long as elephants kept in zoos and are “semi-captive”.
- While they are treated exceptionally well for captive elephants, are logging elephants truly treated humanely?
There’s something unique about the logging industry in Myanmar. After a logger fells, say, one of the country’s numerous and valuable teak trees, the log is hauled by a captive elephant. Wrapped in harnesses, owned by the state or private contractors, these elephants are forced to engage in difficult labor under the guidance of mahouts—elephant keepers, often referred to as “oozies” in Myanmar—who ride astride the animal’s neck.
Sounds cruel, right? Well, yes and no. Elephants throughout history have had more than their fair share of bad treatment at the hands of human beings. They’ve been used in wars, compelled to perform tricks in circuses through the use of hooks and whips, and they are “broken” so that they’ll allow humans to ride them in Thailand and other countries. Even in zoos, elephants are confined to spaces significantly smaller than their home range in the wild, which can be as large as 580 square miles.
But Myanmar’s logging elephants seem to be treated more humanely. As just one example, Asian elephants used for logging in Myanmar live for 42 years, a little more than twice as long as Asian elephants kept in zoos live.
A hard day’s work
STR/AFP/Getty Images
Logging elephants dragging timber in Myanmar.
It seems counterintuitive that elephants employed in hard labor would live longer than zoo elephants who, while not free, aren’t compelled to work particularly hard. There are a few reasons for this. First, Myanmar’s logging elephants aren’t exactly captives—a better term might be semi-captive. At the end of each workday, the elephants are allowed to roam free through the jungle to forage,…
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