The tale of two elephants in captivity

Saturday, 28 February 2015 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Text and pix by Srilal Miththapala This is a sad story about two elephants who live at the Pinnawela Elephant Orphanage (PEO) and the Elephant Transit Home (ETH) respectively. Sama is a victim of the war, where his right foreleg was blown up in a landmine (more accurately known as a pressure mine or popularly known as a Johnny mine, which is laid just below the surface of the ground and detonates when it is stepped upon). He was brought to the PEO in 1996, and he is now a full grown elephant of about 20+ years. With careful rehabilitation, he has fully recovered, but the lower portion of the forelimb had to be amputated. With care provided for him at the PEO, he continued to grow normally, but has to hobble around on three legs because of his injury. Several foreign veterinarians and associations endeavoured to help Sama by designing a prosthetic limb. However, Sama rejected all the designs, which were made and brought down, possibly since he was a grown up young adolescent when the experiments were being tried. So today, he continues his three-legged hobbling, and long years of such unnatural movements has completely distorted his spine, leaving him a rather grotesque hunch back. However, at the PEO, he is cared for well enough and lives a reasonably contented life. Namal on the other hand was brought to the ETH about four years ago, with his left hind leg trapped in a wire noose. Over time, the noose had cut into his foot and gangrene had set in by the time he was brought to the ETH. Due to the specialist care provided by Dr. Vijitha Perera, the Chief Veterinarian of the ETH, and careful convalescence, Namal made a full recovery after the amputation. Once the limb was completely healed, Dr. Vijitha immediately introduced a very rudimentary leather prosthetic stump, and carefully nurtured Namal to get used to it. Being only about two years old at that time it was an easier task getting him acclimatised to the limb. This has been greatly successful and today, Namal is a young adolescent of about six years, walking about reasonably well with his ‘home-made’ prosthetic limb. Of course, the initial design was improved several times over, as he outgrew the original artificial limb and new ones had to be made as replacements. He interacts reasonably well with the other juveniles in the ETH, but cannot really be set free to roam in the open area. It is interesting to note that Namal has accepted his prosthetic limb well, which was a very basic ‘non high-tech’ device, while Sama rejected a fairly sophisticated artificial limb. In fact sometimes when Namal is walking briskly, and the prosthetic limb falls off, he stops and patiently waits until one of the keepers comes and fixes the limb back on him. Perhaps home grown solutions may be more relevant to localised problems? While it is indeed sad to see these two elephants, it is a labour of love of the curators who look after them, that enable them to lead a reasonably normal life as possible, under the circumstances. However, they will never be able to exist alone in the wild, without human care.