00:13:23 Khyne Mar: The presentation of Jennie Crawley indicates that modern mahouts are younger and mahouts change ele frequently -- Can I ask how this inference reach.. My question is how many camps have been included in your research And how many regions/locations of Myanmar have you been covered in your research.. If it is based on one camp I would like to see that you have to declare that this inference is based on this particular camp you have been visited 00:29:58 Alex Greene: Jennie that raises an interesting point - I found that my early conception of 'one mahout-one elephant' which I formed based on experience in Thai elephant camps and mahout culture, did not transfer at all to the Karen communities, where elephants were often 'owned' by up to 5 or 10 families, each one of whom provided a young male member to serve part time as a mahout. it seems there are 'one mahout-one elephant' models and then other kinds of mahoutship models that are more communal. I wonder what kinds of implications this would have for elephant welfare, given your work on the elephant-human relationship and associated stress? 00:31:06 Gilles Maurer: Regarding effect of pademics on tourism elephant fate, a visionary article of Richard Lair published in 2019 : A looming crisis for Thailand’s domesticated elephants? 00:35:33 trish: Nepal has tigers leopards bears rhinos and wild elephants that these other places who practice elephants in forest at nighttime do not have 00:36:11 kat: Current question queue: 00:36:14 trish: nd 00:36:41 kat: 1. Khyne U Mar 2. Alex Green 3. Gilles Maurer 00:36:45 kat: 4. Erin Ivory 00:37:16 Gilles Maurer: At least in Laos, the question is not really about keeping the knowledge or practices to release village elephants, but rather a question of land management, the availability of forage land 00:38:19 Paul Keil: ... or forest is close to farmland. Or elephants are privately owned and might have issues being released in state controlled forest 00:39:15 Hannah Mumby: Thanks for the talks! I wondered after the presentations, which are all linked by the relationship of mahouts and elephants, how important is it for the future of this relationship (and the future of captive elephants) that elephants “do” something? Whether it’s in terms of logging (which looks uncertain), tourism, transportation or something else. Is there a possibility the relationship can continue without economic or some other activity framing it? 00:40:59 Khyne Mar: In Myanmar Government regulation is that it is mahout duty to take his ele to good foraging ground a minimum 20 miles from human settlement to avoid incidents of eles going to farming areas 00:42:47 Gilles Maurer: Aggree 00:44:47 Paul Keil: interesting! 00:45:29 Gilles Maurer: In Laos, the owner shall pay back… same issue 00:45:47 Anindya "Rana" Sinha: @Hannah Mumby: In Kerala state of southern India, which possibly has the highest number of captive elephants, most elephants are integral to many religious festivities that take place in temples, over centuries now. Many elephants that are now ‘unemployed’ due to the ban on logging, have been taken to Kerala for this purpose. 00:47:18 Paul Keil: I can only think of a few people I met in Assam who didn't work their elephants, and they were pretty rich. Even the local guys who owned an elephant and lived next to forest, the elephant became a financial and effortful burden 00:48:08 Paul Keil: I think we need to distinguish between domesticated biologically and domestic relationship - elephant of the village and the home 00:49:02 Gilles Maurer: Interesting situation in Southern Laos, where village elephant are released seasonally around highly cultivated - flat savannah areas - with success because of the presence of wetlands where elephants are foraging 00:49:56 Hannah Mumby: Paul makes a really good point: maybe domestic and domesticated is a good distinct. 00:51:32 Anindya "Rana" Sinha: In response to Jacob’s comment on whether forest patches that are maintained in agricultural landscapes can sustain wild populations of elephants, I am not at all sure they can. Most of these individuals now forage in farmlands and end up with rather negative interactions with the local human communities. 00:52:02 MIchelle Szydlowski: I think Paul is correct. Domestic relationship but not domesticated. However, if we want to be interdisciplinary (I have a biology background) we need to avoid using biological terms in other ways. 00:52:28 kat: 1. Khyne 2. Alex Greene 3. Erin Ivory 4. Hannah Mumby 5. Thomas Trautmann 00:53:57 phjhcoste: Lao people consider villge elephanr and forest elephant, as Nicolas explained yesterday they belong to different spirits 00:55:52 Anindya "Rana" Sinha: I also wonder whether, looking at it from the elephant’s perspective, a “domesticated” elephant is one that has been captured from the wild, broken into and made to work while those that are “domestic” are those born into captivity and therefore, more exposed to work from a relatively young age. Would you care to comment, Paul? 00:59:07 Jacob Shell: To me, "domesticated" means "made friendly to the human domus (habitat)." "Domestic" is partly good, but to my ear that word also means "within the nation-state (as opposed to international," which sounds confusing in some contexts. I gave my reservations with the word "captive" already. I try to use "work elephant" much of the time. My view is we are not going to find a perfect word in English, because the English terms were developed over the centuries to describe different kinds of human-animal dynamics in NW Europe, where nothing is like the human - Asian elephant dynamic is present. 00:59:25 Aung Myint Htun: it depend on private or government own. Most of the private elephant camps hire a young one. 01:00:02 Khyne Mar: Agree to Anindya.. I prefer Captive elephants 01:00:11 MIchelle Szydlowski: I think tamed or trained. Some cases ‘broken’ or captive is more appropriate. Most of the elephants in Nepal are imported from India, so no real ‘born into captivity’ there. 01:00:14 Gilles Maurer: Same in Laos, multi ownership and co-mahouting of the elephant, usually under some sort of time-sharing basis along the year 01:00:45 Gilles Maurer: Much less since the development of tourism industry with 1 elephant/1mahout 01:01:19 Chelsea Gragg: Excellent point, Erin. Thanks for bringing that up. 01:02:34 Pgkeil: Some of the reasons I would like to reclaim domestic is because I find the term captivity unsatisfactory in how it articulates: i) the agency of elephants in working relationships and tasks, ii) the assumptions it makes about "natural" and "unnatural" social and ecological contexts for elephants, and iii) because the term captivity has its own genealogy from a western perspective on nature vs. culture or human vs. nonhuman that does not grasp how mahouts can also see elephants as members of a family, as god-like beings, or otherwise (any kind of status that is not reduced to object or commodity). That is not to say that the notion of captive and commodity cannot be applied in describing aspects of a relationship, and indeed even in some contexts it might be the overwhelming aspect, but as a generalised category I find I have too many disagreements with it. and not to say domestic relations is perfect either. 01:02:55 Jacob Shell: "Captive" and "broken" may be literally accurate, but I don't plan to use those words when I am tying to convince people why these practices deserve to be invested in. Even "tamed" has a slightly negative connotation, suggesting the wild elephants have been deprived of agency. 01:03:21 Pgkeil: yes that's a good point about tamed, Jacob 01:03:36 MIchelle Szydlowski: But in the case of Nepal, they have been deprived of agency.. 01:03:39 Khyne Mar: Tamed Trained Elephant?? 01:05:18 Jennie Crawley: I always use the term semi-captive but I know that is only relevant in certain contexts 01:05:41 Jacob Shell: Darwin called them "half-wild elephants" 01:06:19 Easwaran E.K. Dr. Vet: Good old Mahouts are more attentive to elephnats and understand elephants fats....they took a long training under their senior Mahout. Youngsters are less skilled and probably more diverted into other aspects of life. Compassion is low among Newgens. Money matters them more.. 01:06:42 Easwaran E.K. Dr. Vet: understand elephnats fast 01:07:09 Erin Ivory: or remove the support of the western funders 01:09:02 Nigel Rothfels: Reminded of the illegalization of the use of bears in performance in various places of Europe in the 19th century in response to the demands of people who wanted to help the bears — the immediate outcome was the destruction of virtually all captive bears. 01:09:10 Easwaran E.K. Dr. Vet: Also most of the law-regulations are not aimed at Welfare of the elephnat, especially in India, the forest department is more into ownership related issues under the WLP Act. One do not find the word Welfare anywhere 01:10:18 Erin Ivory: Thank you!!! 01:10:35 Chelsea Gragg: Thank you everyone! 01:10:38 MIchelle Szydlowski: I have a domestication paper coming out soon dealing with this topic :) 01:10:52 Easwaran E.K. Dr. Vet: Suppoting Mahouts is the most important, of late atleast some of the Owners due to COVID fiscal crisis 01:10:56 soonberg: Question to Michelle: Would they like to learn how to interact with elepants? 01:11:04 MIchelle Szydlowski: Some do.... 01:11:10 MIchelle Szydlowski: Thanks everyone! 01:11:18 Nigel Rothfels: Thank you 01:11:19 Cathy Turner: Thank you! 01:11:24 Ashoka Ranjeewa: Thank you all 01:11:26 Hannah Mumby: Thanks for this session! Sorry I won’t be able to join more, it’s already rather late in HK 01:11:29 Madrid, Rebecca: Thank you! This was a wonderful panel! 01:11:30 phjhcoste: Thank you 01:11:58 phjhcoste: Merci Nicolas 01:12:11 Pgkeil: nice to see you Philippe!