Newsletter June 2001
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Elephant Care International
Sumatra Project Update
April - June 2001
Susan K. Mikota and Hank Hammatt

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

These last three months in Sumatra have been hectic but educational. Much of April was devoted to participating in a workshop on the Management of Elephant Training Centers (ETC’s) in Sumatra organized by the International Elephant Foundation (IEF) and Fauna and Flora International (FFI). The workshop included visits to each of the ETC’s and a follow-up meeting in Jakarta to strategize how best to address the on-going need for veterinary and husbandry support. Dr. Holly Reed, from Point Defiance Zoo participated in the workshop and then came to Riau to become our first volunteer. Holly was a great help and a good sport.

We are very grateful for the trunk of veterinary supplies and the scale donated for use at the Sebanga ETC by IEF. Our own shipment of veterinary supplies, books, files, and personal belongings is still being detained in customs. The IEF supplies have allowed us to function while we try to identify local sources for elephant veterinary supplies (not an easy task). Several elephants at Sebanga are under medical care . Epi and Peri are receiving treatment for capture -related injuries,  Kampar, an adolescent bull, sustained burns to his legs and abdomen when he stepped over a hot steam-oil pipeline, and  Salas has a foot problem. In addition we are caring for an orphaned 2-3 month old female calf. “Wiwind” was separated from her herd after a crop-raiding incident in Lampung province. She was brought to Sebanga in the hopes that Puspa, our lactating female, would adopt her, but this was unsuccessful. Wiwind is now being bottle-fed.

The Sebanga ETC holds 60 elephants at four different locations 2-4 hours apart. In addition to caring for the elephants at these sites, we hope to provide care to the 18 elephants at North Sumatra ETC (~ 6 hours away) and also to the 7 elephants housed at the zoo in Pekanbaru (~ 3 hours away). We have also learned that several pulp mills in the area have “adopted” elephants (3 days ago one of these elephants tusked his pawang who is now in the hospital – a reminder that these usually gentle animals can be extremely dangerous).

These past 3 months have provided us a more informed perspective on the healthcare issues of the ETC. Many healthcare problems go untreated due to a lack of supplies, a lack of knowledge, or both. As with other wild species (and humans) preventive health care is of the utmost importance. Once problems occur, they can be difficult to diagnose and expensive to treat. Adequate nutrition, regular veterinary examinations, and educating pawangs about how to better care for their elephants are some of the practices that we hope to institute to improve elephant healthcare.

Compounding the situation is the fact that the pawangs (mahouts) have received only 100,000 rupiah (less than US $10) per month (of a 300,000 rp salary) for the past 5 months. Given this situation, the camp manager is reluctant to ask the pawangs to do more than the minimum required. This withholding of funds by the government is a routine practice and perhaps one of the biggest obstacles to improving the standards of practice at the centers. We considered the possibility of setting up a micro-bank for the pawangs. Several persons with many years of experience with these situations, including NGO’s and micro-bank experts, advised against direct gifts of money and suggested instead that we continue our present practice of bringing extra rice and other food for the pawangs. Failure of such bank ventures or perceptions, real or otherwise, of graft within such a system is often associated with the organizer and could jeopardize our primary goal of caring for the elephants.

In addition, we are “interim visitors”. One of our objectives is to establish procedures and programs that will endure beyond our few (3-5) years here. A one-time gift or loans that are unlikely to be re-paid do not offer a long-term solution. As we have seen in the U.S., direct welfare does not succeed as well as a constructive helping hand. We would eventually like to examine processing elephant dung for compost, making elephant dung-based hand-made paper, creating small eco-tours, or other alternative income sources for the pawangs.

In the meantime we are experiencing first-hand what we already knew – namely that the problems affecting these elephants cannot be solved without also addressing the problems that face the people who care for them. And so  when we bring rice and corn and fish meal to make a supplement for the thin elephants, we also bring rice for the pawangs and noodles, and fresh water and other things they have requested – newspapers, books, a guitar, a TV.

These are difficult issues to balance. We came here, after all, to improve the healthcare of the elephants, to train veterinarians, to provide material support from the west - for the elephants. Finding the resources to care for 60-100 elephants is challenging enough without also being faced with the needs of 68+ pawangs … some with families. A month old baby of one of the pawangs recently died in camp. We were not told of any problem before the death. We don’t know if she was taken to a doctor. We wonder what the pawang thinks about all the drugs we bring for the elephants. We are working with Dr. Mark Davis at Caltex to arrange for all of the pawangs to have medical and eye exams and have agreed to pay for all treatments required for any illnesses discovered. But again – what about their families? Difficult issues - and there are many.

Illegal logging continues unabated in Sebanga, although it is a protected area. Logging trucks actually drive through the camp on their way to harvest logs that have been floated down a stream previously used by the elephants for drinking and bathing. There is no law enforcement to make it any different.

The Landscape of Sumatra is Changing ...

                       from This                                          to This.

 And yet bird life abounds at the Sebanga ETC – we see hornbills, parrots, broadbills, woodpeckers, malkohas, racket-tailed drongos, and others. Langurs are frequent visitors and we hear gibbons calling almost every morning when we arrive at 7am. However, the serenity is marred by the sound of chainsaws and the realization that the wildlife we see has nowhere else to go. The fragmented forest is a stark reality.

Our projects here are challenging, bewildering, frustrating, and sometimes – rewarding. The deaths of a pawang’s child reflects the harsh realities of life among the less advantaged in Indonesia today. The tasks here are not for the romantic or the timid.

On the positive side, the people are wonderfully warm, cheerful, and a joy to be around. The pawangs are always helpful and eager to learn and to share their language and culture. The children walking to school are quick with a wave and a smile. When we shop in the open markets of Simpang Padang the vendors thoroughly enjoy both the quantities we buy (elephants and pawangs require a lot) and the tough bargaining. They rarely see ex-pats in their little stalls.

We thank all of you who are supporting us and have helped us achieve some progress. Additional contributions have been made this period by Chevron, the Melbourne Zoo, and several private donors (including the Science Club at the Ursuline Academy in New Orleans). We thank the Oregon Zoo for managing the private donations. Susan was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship – she was one of 183 recipients from 2,728 applicants for this prestigious award. She was also honored by an invitation to become a member of the Asian Elephant Specialist Group (a commission of the IUCN).

Susan K. Mikota DVM
Hank Hammatt