Ask the trainers or other wandering tourists about this behavior and you´ll receive a similar answer. But the chained giants at Chitwan´s Elephant Breeding Centre (EBC) aren´t playing. They´re bored and "psychotic", according to animal experts.[break]
"An elephant sways when feeling discomfort. It is because they are anxious," said Dr Ishwari Prasad Dhakal, professor of veterinary at Chitwan´s IAAS campus.
"Elephants are extremely intelligent and social animals. Elephants in captivity often develop severe mental disorders," said Dhakal.
The government first opened the EBC in 1989 with the aim of boosting Nepal´s elephant population, which has been drastically reduced by poaching and loss of environment.
The centre -- located about 4km west of Chitwan´s Sauraha -- is today aligned with the attraction of elephant safari, where tourists are shuttled around on elephants´ back.
Jhamak Karki, chief warden of Chitwan National Park, said there are 59 elephants under the EBC´s care, but only about 15 of these are currently being used for breeding.
When Republica visited the EBC last week, it saw approximately 15 elephants -- including some baby elephants -- tied to wooden poles with one meter metal chains.
A third of the adult elephants displayed swaying behavior. One large creature -- chained alone in a corner -- swayed back and forth non-stop for over 30 minutes.
Manoj Gautam, founder of conservation group, Roots and Shoots, which completed a report on the centre last year, said the elephants have turned "psychotic".
"Elephants by natural instinct and characteristics shouldn´t be on chains. In the wild they roam tens of kilometers a day," he said. "They have strong memory powers and have high intellectual capacity. So if they´re tied they tend to go psychotic."
Elephants at the center are let off their chains for up to four hours a day. Females are impregnated by wild elephants at a nearby river rather than being artificially inseminated.
Once a baby elephant is born, it is kept in the breeding centre with its mother for three years before being trained for Chitwan´s famous elephant safari.
It´s with this attraction that the EBC receives its bread and butter: government-owned elephants are one of the only travel modes given full access to the national park.
This attraction is also a livelihood for hundreds of elephant trainers, managers, and caretakers in the surrounding Tharu communities.
Yet the methods used to train the animals for the safari have attracted widespread international condemnation by animal welfare groups and travel groups.
"The training often includes intense physical and mental abuse," said travel company Holland TUI, which in 2011 banned elephant safari as part of its Nepal tours.
Gautam said the park´s training practices was based on "breaking" the animal, with fire, negative reinforcement, and a "process of desensitization" routine practice.
A local arm of the WWF has been working with the breeding centre and its mahout (elephant trainers) to change training methods.
Yet sources said that Chitwan´s mahouts are dissatisfied with the NGO´s training practices and feel they don´t properly address long-term sustainability.
"Mahouts face a lot of danger in their job. Many of them die. So they are very wary of changing their training practices to one of positive reinforcement," said Gautam."Their processes have been going on for generations and generations. What they know is to be as cruel and ruthless as they can."
Animal Welfare Network Nepal (AWNN) said the immediate ban on elephant safari or breeding is not practical, but that better conditions need to be immediately achieved.
Tourists are charged between 25 and 50 NR to enter the park: a sum said to go toward conservation and the animal´s welfare.
The EBC or its manager, Lal Bahadur Bhandari, could not be contacted for clarification on how the funds are put toward elephant welfare. Nepal has no legal framework for elephant welfare.
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