Elephant Whisperers: It can promote a nuanced understanding of the pachyderm-human relationship, say experts

Even as India rejoices in winning two Academy Awards this year, experts have expressed hope that the win for the documentary Elephant Whisperers and the subsequent spotlight will promote understanding of elephants’ complex relationship with humans.

Elephant Whisperers, directed by Kartiki Gonsalves, tells the story of the bond between two orphaned elephants and their caretakers, an indigenous Adivasi couple, in the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve, Tamil Nadu.

The film won the Oscar in the ‘Best Documentary Short’ category at the 95th Academy Awards held in Dolby Theater, Los Angeles, United States March 12, 2023.

“Elephants have always been very popular in the arts, mass media and popular culture. I keep joking that wherever one goes in the world, one will find an elephant within 50 metres of oneself. They are a part of culture even in places where they are not extant,” Tarsh Thekaekara, a researcher studying human-elephant interaction in the Nilgiris in South India told Down To Earth (DTE).

Raman Sukumar, from the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru agreed. He told DTE:

It is an iconic animal. There are elephants depicted in Mesolithic Era petroglyphs in Odisha; in Harappan seals that are more that 4,000 years old; in the frescoes of Ajanta. It has been there in our culture and civilisation for a very long time. Of course, there are different roles that it has played over time so the interest and media coverage also keeps changing.

One of the aspects that experts were particularly appreciative about was the identity of the caretakers and also the depiction of their relationship with the elephants in their care.

“What the documentary did quite well was put on display the intimacy between elephants, captive in this case, and their caretakers, as well as between elephants and communities that share their landscape with elephants at large. That helps the world get a better understanding of how people in India live alongside wildlife,” Nitin Sekar WWF India’s national lead for elephant conservation and author of the book What’s left of the jungle, said.

Indeed, it is poor, disempowered, underprivileged, indigenous and forest dwelling people of the country who have to bear the brunt of attacks by elephants because of the overconsumption of urbanised, well-heeled Indians even when they are least at fault, according to Thekaekara.

Captive and wild

Alok Hisarwala Gupta, from the Centre for Research on Animal Rights, welcomed the Oscar win for Elephant Whisperers.

“With the Elephant Whisperers winning the Oscar, I hope it paves the way for a better global understanding of the threats they face both in the wild and captivity,” Gupta, who has been among the activists highlighting the illegal trafficking of wild elephants from Arunachal Pradesh and Assam to temples in Gujarat, tweeted soon after the win.

The experts DTE spoke to felt that though the film was well-intentioned and sensitive, expecting it to help generate solutions to the complex problems concerning wild as well as captive elephants in India was a tall order.

“What I am not as sure about is whether a 40-minute documentary can help generate the detailed focus necessary to come up with nuanced solutions to complicated problems such as those related to elephant conservation and human-elephant conflict. That is going to require efforts from all of us. A single documentary cannot fix that,” Sekar said.

Sukumar told DTE that the captive elephant-wild elephant relationship is a very complex and nuanced issue. India has had both types of animals for the last several thousand years.

Each one has a role in conservation. “We certainly need wild elephants because they are keystone species and system engineers. They play a certain role in the functioning of natural ecosystems which has to be maintained,” he said.

But there is limited space for wild elephants because their populations have increased in the last 30-40 years due to conservation efforts.

Therefore, wild elephants have been spilling over into human-dominated areas. “There is thus a need for managing and minimising conflicts. That sometimes means that elephants are brought into captivity,” Sukumar added.

Thekaekara explained as to why elephants were coming out of forest areas. “Across elephant habitats, invasive plant species like lantana are taking over. Forest boundaries are intact. But large parts of those forests cannot be used by elephants and other herbivores for forage since they have been taken over by invasives,” he noted.

On the other hand, irrigation projects are creating lush green croplands outside forests that are planted year round. In the summer, when there is no forage anywhere and there is lush green crops outside, it acts like a pull for the elephants.  

“When they come out, they have to interact with linear infrastructure – electric wires, fences rail tracks and highways give a lot of trouble to elephants,” according to Thekaekara.

Then there is the problems of elephants in captivity. While Elephant Whisperers sensitively depicts the relationship between caretaker and elephant, this is not always the case.

The concept of elephants in captivity has elicited criticism primarily due to the abuse perpetrated on the animals in such conditions.

“This is due to excessive commercialisation of captive elephants including parading them in temple festivities daily for instance. They are overworked and there is a huge amount of problems regarding their welfare. There are some temples in Tamil Nadu where solitary female elephants are kept whereas the species is highly social. All this has brought a very bad name to elephants in captivity,” according to Sukumar.

“We do not encourage people keeping elephants in private custody, or riding elephants, painting elephants, bathing elephants or exploiting them in close contact for commercial gain. We believe that elephants, like other forms of wildlife, belong in the wild. For those elephants already in captivity, we advocate humane treatment and their maintenance in wildlife friendly facilities,” Shubhobroto Ghosh, Wildlife Research Manager (India) for animal welfare non-profit, World Animal Protection, told DTE.

But a balance can be brought about. The elephants kept by forest departments in forest camps, for instance, live in a semi-natural habitat and welfare standards are much higher, Sukumar said.

He added that the setting of the documentary in Mudumalai was particularly poignant since 30 years ago, he had noted in an academic paper that the captive elephants there had the best longevity and birth rates.

“In the last few years, captive elephants have earned a very bad rap. But there is the other side too. If it has been sensitively depicted I am happy about it,” he said.

“The documentary will definitely a go a long way in promoting a more nuanced understanding of the human-elephant relationship and that is great. Whether it will have an impact on the wider problems of elephant conservation is beyond the ambit of what a documentary can do,” Thekaekara emphasised.

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