My goals as an advisor in elephant bull husbandry are:
Providing a good training program to animal institutions who are handling elephant bulls. Tranquilize elephants because their feet need to be trimmed or blood has to be drawn, transported etc… can be history when you have a good training program. “Hands off” shouldn’t be necessary when you have well trained bulls.
Try to convince and help animal institutions to train their elephant bulls and bull calves at the age of 4 to 5 in “PC” (protected contact). By training/teaching them the basics at a young age you will offer elephant handlers worldwide well trained bulls in “PC”. When we train them in a “PC situation” you will still be able to handle him in his musth period, which often isn’t possible when we work in “FC” (free contact) with our bulls. That doesn’t mean that good “FC training” isn’t working with elephant bulls either, but then we have to look for specialized trainers with lots of experience to begin with and who have confidence in what they do.
Help animal institutions which house untrained elephant bulls at their facility, to teach to perform all the “PC”- commands that are needed for a good elephant bull husbandry.
To help zoos making the step to choose for a bachelor group because of the large numbers of new born bull calves worldwide in captivity. Choosing for elephant bulls doesn’t need to be frightening and as a park you make yourself important in many ways.
With these goals in mind I want to help elephant bull handlers worldwide in managing and understanding these wonderful creatures.
