Zubair Qureshi
Pakistan’s lone Asian bull elephant Kaavan who has spent years in chained isolation is showing signs of enrichment and enjoying daily sessions of training with his foreign trainer in Islamabad’s Marghazar Zoo.
Kaavan is set to leave Pakistan later this month for Cambodia and for this purpose Four Paws International team led by Dr Amir Khalil is working day and night to make the journey comfortable for Kaavan. The animal rights group (Four Paws) has given a tentative date of Nov 29 and a chartered flight has also been arranged for this purpose.
A huge crate is put inside the 500 sq metre enclosure and the animal is daily tempted to enter this cage, stay there and exit it peacefully.
Kaavan’s translocation from Pakistan to Cambodia is going to be one of its kind, never heard of before as it is going to be an 8-hour direct flight and the animal will have to say all this while in the crate.
Though these are the days of ‘mast’—a periodic condition in bull elephants characterized by highly aggressive behavior accompanied by a large rise in reproductive hormones—Kaavan is not aggressive to the extent bull elephants usually are during this period.
According to Kaavan trainer and head of the Four Paws Elephants Husbandry in Myanmar, Ingo Schmidinger, the elephant is very intelligent and friendly. He is happy with all the attention he is receiving from his trainers, vets and staff of the Islamabad Wildlife Management Board (IWMB), said he.
He not only responds to the clues and targets we set for him, he also knows that he will get a reward in the end, an apple usually and he loves to do this, said Ingo.
Though only five days into training after his arrival earlier this week, Ingo is quite impressed with Kaavan’s intelligence. “He knows in advance what we are going to do or what our game plan is,” he said.
The focus of his training however is to familiarize Kaavan with crate—to enter and exit it and to feel comfortable inside.
“Usually an elephant is trained for foot care, for taking blood samples, but in Kaavan case he is going to be familiarized with the crate and stay there cool and calm even when there is noise,” said Ingo.
