The H-ELP Foundation’s training team of Dr Andrew McLean, Dr Portland Jones and Nicki Stuart, as well as Chair of the board, Mark Trayling, have just returned from H-ELP's first international mahout training school, held at the National Elephant Training Institute in Thailand.

Almost fifty delegates from seven Asian nations gathered together for three intense days of learning and sharing ideas and insights. This was by far the most ambitious project we have undertaken and we believe it is the first time ever that so many different nationalities have come together to learn about evidence based training and how it can improve the welfare of captive elephants. It seemed particularly fitting that the training team consisted of three of the original board members as an international mahout school was part of our original vision for H-ELP, almost fifteen years ago. However, even in our most optimistic moments we wouldn’t have hoped for the scale and engagement of the 2024 school.

The Asian elephant is a species at a crossroads. The wild population is dwindling, under pressure from human-elephant conflict, poaching, habitat loss and climate change while the sustainability of the captive population is threatened by the tension between tradition and over-zealous western welfare agencies who demand change without offering viable alternatives. Evidence based training offers a way to significantly improve welfare while providing objective and scientific ways to measure training and management outcomes. Moreover, this kind of training offers a theoretical framework which doesn’t threaten the thousands of years of tradition and belief around which the current practices are based, but rather enables culturally sensitive opportunities to modify existing techniques and build a sustainable training practice.

H-ELP's three-day camp was held at the National Elephant Institute in Lamphun, home to over 120 captive elephants. Each day began with a classroom session that included presentations, hands-on activities and group discussions. Some of the topics covered in these sessions included presentations on how animals learn, the benefits of combined reinforcement, the pitfalls of punishment, shaping and desensitisation techniques for therapeutic veterinary interventions. Some of the more popular hands-on activities included mapping the placement of cues and a training simulation. The group discussions were lively yet respectful and included topics such as the preference for mouth vs trunk feeding, weaning and time frames for training of the young elephant.

On the first two days the afternoon sessions were hands-on training sessions with elephants. Delegates were able to observe elephants being trained by their mahouts who were being guided in the acquisition of evidence-based techniques by the H-ELP training team. On the second day delegates were offered the opportunity to try “training” an elephant made from steel and, later, were able to assist with the training of the real elephants. It was humbling to see just how much they appreciated being able to try some of the new techniques they had learned in the classroom sessions. On the third day our practical demonstration was at the National Elephant Institute's vet centre and involved counter conditioning techniques to manage therapeutic vet interventions and training for mouth handling.

One of the most interesting aspects of the international camp was the interactions between mahouts from other nations. Sharing the different behaviours that each region’s elephants were trained to perform and the reasoning behind them was a wonderful learning experience for all the delegates (and the training team) and provided lots of learning opportunities. On the first day each regional group marked the cues they use in training onto a large poster of an elephant and the posters were then arranged at the front of the classroom and a lively discussion ensued. Later, the H-ELP trainers discussed the possibility that this might be the first time a western training organisation has validated traditional practices, many of which have been passed from father to son for generations. As trainers in the field it is important for us to acknowledge the rich tradition that the mahouts have inherited and help them train more effectively by conveying the ways in which their elephant acquires behaviours rather than trying to totally change their entire practice. We see our role as explaining the over-arching theoretical framework of learning so that the mahouts have the knowledge to apply their training more effectively.

It was incredibly exciting to see just how receptive the delegates were to new information. Sometimes mahouts are often portrayed in the media as uncaring but that has not been the case with the mahouts or camp managers we have worked with – they are trying really hard to improve the welfare of the elephants in their care and in many cases have dedicated a significant portion of their lives to this goal.

Some of the key things that learned during this camp are:

• Good translation is incredibly important. Dr Nissa, Mr Prasop, Jack Edwards and Dr Bhaskar were fantastic, they were absolutely focused on sharing the information correctly and on engaging their listeners. The simultaneous translation also made us think more, slow down and reframe our information in the most succinct way possible.
• Even a single exposure to evidence-based training makes a difference. We are seeing people at this camp that in some instances we haven't seen for five or more years but they remember - maybe not with great clarity but they have enough of a foundation to make the next steps easier. Dr Nissa, who has been involved with our camps at the Anantara for maybe five years has a fantastic understanding of learning theory and, perhaps even more importantly, can implement it practically.

We absolutely couldn't do this work without the support of a great number of people. The H-ELP board has been tireless and our sponsors extremely generous. The work we have been doing for the past fifteen years has made a difference but the international mahout school has increased our reach exponentially and it is time now to build on that progress.

The future for H-ELP could include regional mahout schools all across Asia and an accreditation program for elephant related businesses – if we could achieve that we would really know that we had truly done our best to improve the welfare of captive Asian elephants and helped preserve the species for future generations to enjoy.

Once again thank you to our generous donors for enabling this transformational camp – patron Lisa Cochrane and Toyota Finance Australia.

If YOU are interested in making a kinder world for elephants, please consider donating: https://h-elp.org/leave-a-donation