I guess India is closed for the near term. I've read a little about tiger and leopard hunting there, but I have yet to see anything about elephant. Was Indian elephant ever hunted in modern times? What sort of ivory did they have? Is this the species that provided material for early Chinese ivory carvers?

H. C.

Henry,



The Indian elephant, on average, has much smaller ivory than its african cousin. There is also supposed to be sub species of giant elephant that lives in the remote jungle covered mountains of Nepal which is supposedly a modern day mamouth. An expedition by a British explorer actually went in search of it in the 1980's, but I guess it was as elusive as its yeti cousin! The guy wrote a book about it called Mamouth Hunt ( i think) but after flicking through it a couple of times I was not impressed enough to buy it.



Getting back to Indian elephants, i won't say that they were never hunted for their ivory but in modern times I think more were shot as "rogues" or crop raiders than purely for sport. I suspect the elephant had more of a value as a beast of burden?



If you have not done so already, I recommend you read "Nine Maneaters and one Rogue" by Kenneth Anderson or better yet get his two modern Omnibus Editions which include all his books.



regards,



Pete

Nick,



Yes, those are the elephants they found. They do look pretty different and far larger than the usual Indian elephant, but as far as I know they were not embraced by science as a new species nor a throw back. I might have to break down and buy the book second hand, but as the actress who went on the expediation and was responsible for a lot of the publicity is a hard core "anti" there is no way I am putting money in her pocket nor financially supporting any of her pet causes!



Regards,



Pete

Pete,
Not sure but I think they did note an extra gene or chromosome (?) which set them apart. What that really means is Greek to me. There is a particular group of Thai forest elephant with some odd structural characteristics and hair that some say are a throwback to another era but so much of this is guesswork, rather similar to those "authorities" on dinosaur behavior. Some of those folks speak as though they were there!

Maybe they had Indian elephants in Africa at one time. Seems like I remember from watching the old black and white Tarzan movies when I was a child, Tarzan would always be riding an Indian elephant.

Nickudu,

Thanks for posting about the Raj Gaj - until last year, no one other than some tribals in Nepal. Assam etc even believed they existed. But while they have huge heads, the body size is still small like most Indian (or, as biologists prefer these days, Asiatic) elephant.

Henry C 470,

There was some elephant hunting in India, but for more than 2000 years, elephant have been domesticated in what is now considered India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Burma, Siam etc. I presume there was not much interest in hunting an animal that was easily domesticated and that was the reason why elephant were not hunted as much as tigers were.

We also have the Asiatic one horned Rhinoceros in India, Nepal, Indinesia etc and until the 20th century, that too was not hunted much, if at all it was hunted. Now, of course, the Chinese have driven them to extinction like they seem to be doing to the tiger...

Good hunting!

mehulkamdar,

Rather than hunting to kill elephants, I believe "hunts" to round up and capture wild elephants for domestication took place and these were often huge affairs lasting some days and covering large areas of forest. I seem to recall seeing photos our Prince of Wales being "entertained" in this way by Indian Royalty...

Regards,

Pete

Pete E,

The Khedda and pit systems for rounding elephants up were in use until the mid 1970s. Elephants were in use in the logging industry until about 10 years ago and my late father in law had an elephant for precisely this purpose.

We still have an annual livestock fair at Pushkar every year where elephants are sold - most of these are trained animals but I have no idea where they get them from. Most are bought these days for temples because the Hindus use them in a number of rituals. You can see them on the streets of South Indian cities where mahouts ride them to beg when the temples are closed for worship. It is a sad fate for a noble animal, but the fact that they are revered has at least kept my countrymen from shooting them to extinction.

Is there any form of breeding program for the tame elephants?

Boghossian,

The Forest Department has always had a captive breeding programme for elephant from the days when it used them in the timber trade. Nowadays, the elephants are used to take tourists around wildlife sanctuaries because there is very little if any logging done in reserve forests.

Some of the former royalty also had stables of elephants but I would guess that only the maharaja of Mysore has one now and I have no idea how many elephants he has. He nearly went bankrupt some years ago and sold the grounds on one of his palaces to a developer.

There is also a temple at Guruvayoor in Kerala and they own own about 30 elephants but I have no idea whether they breed them.

I believe that there is an active breeding program going on in Thailand among some of the ethnic minorities.