Setting up an African Elephant “BQA”

Ted Friend, retired Professor Emeritus in the Department of Animal Science at Texas A&M University, recently returned from two weeks near Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, helping to get the private owners of elephants in Southern Africa organized to start an animal welfare assurance program, similar to the successful BQA. The populations of elephants in the federal parks in Zimbabwe and other southern African countries soared to the point of necessitating a major culling program 20 years ago, and the parks are similarly becoming overcrowded with elephants again. Private land owners were offered the opportunity of adopting and raising baby elephants that were destined to be culled, and often adopted baby elephants whose mothers had been poached for ivory. Training the young elephants to give tourists rides is relatively easy and similar to training young horses. It is very different from the traditional Asian model of capturing and “breaking” mature elephants from the wild. Giving tourists elephant rides into the bush to view wildlife generates more income than merely viewing the elephants, and the rides and related activities employ many local people, which is significant in a country with over 80% unemployment.

During the three day workshop near Victoria Falls, entitled “A Way Forward,” Ted gave a presentation showing how popular and valuable welfare certification programs have become in America for food animals, zoo animals, motion pictures, and attractions where people interact directly with animals. Zimbabwe and other southern African countries were British colonies, are English speaking, and rely heavily on the American market. Ted’s second presentation led the audience through what a typical animal welfare certification and inspection program involves. There is a lot of similarity between a program for dairy farms, a zoo, and elephant facilities, but any program needs to be credible and offer the stakeholders value. A steering committee of stakeholders, including Ted, is now writing standards and an audit. Many elephant ride operations already adhere to the standards of the Association of British Travel Agents; the elephant operators just need to reassure the public in a credible way.

Each night these elephants come into the corral (boma) for a pile of nice forage mixed with occasional melons, squash and other treats. It takes some impressive fencing to keep the wild elephants out of the boma area. In spite of this, a wild male broke through this fence and a similar interior fence that separated the irrigated fields that produce the forage and melons a few weeks ago. It took four men two hours, while also firing an occasional shot in the air, to chase that elephant out.
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