|
Improved
Training
Our training
procedures are based on well-established techniques in the modern
science and practice of animal
training: rewarding, pressure-release, shaping, and habituation.
|
The training procedure, often
called "Positive Learning Method", has been designed
to
combine a maximal reliability of elephants at work with well-being of
the elephants and safety of staff. This is achieved through a detailed
understanding of an elephant’s brain functions related to learning.
Benefits to
Reliability and
Safety
Increased safety of staff is one of the method’s major benefits to
elephant owners and handlers. As there is no pain inflicted on the
elephants, the result is considerably less aggression in the elephants
towards humans, which can save lives especially during the musth or
arousal period of male elephants. Additionally, as the training method
effectively prevents unnecessary confrontations and panic situations,
accidents during training and handling that can result in injury of
death of staff become rare.
There are several reasons why inflicting pain ont he elephants becomes
unnecessary when using the Positive Learning Method. One of them is the
detailed attention that is paid on the clarity and timing of the
signals the trainer gives to the elephant. Another crucial element is
an understanding on how to motivate the animal to perform each action
and how to condition the animal to follow each command in any
circumstances. With these skills, the trainer can control the elephant
without inflicting pain. The elephant also learns faster compared to
traditionally trained elephants, and carries out its tasks with
reliability and precision.
Benefits to Elephant Well-Being and
Health
An obvious benefit to the elephants themselves is the lack of pain,
fear, and injuries during training, but there is also a long-term
health benefit to gain from Positive Learning. Getting trained and
handled in a consistent and pain-free way reduces the chronic stress of
elephants as compared to those that are trained traditionally or
handled with unnecessary force. Such a reduction in stress is not only
a plus in well-being in itself, but it also improves the functioning of
the elephant’s immune system and thus improves its chances of staying
in good health.
From the perspective of a veterinarian, the elephants become easier to
handle during routine procedures such as taking blood samples. An
additional benefit is that elephants can be trained to perform specific
behaviour necessary in some aspects of health care, such as
co-operating in the trunk wash technique that is a necessary part of
sampling for a reliable tuberculosis test, which is difficult with
traditionally trained elephants but relatively easy with the Positive
Learning approach.
|
|
How Does It Work?
Contrary to common belief, it is not necessary for an elephant to be
afraid of his trainers and handlers in order to obey. If the trainer is
skilled in the techniques of rewarding and pressure-release, the use of
punishment and other forms of inflicting pain become unnecessary in
training.
The key to animal training is getting the animal to form an association
between hearing a specific word (or getting some other cue, like a
touch of a rider’s foot) and performing a specific action. For example,
a connection between hearing the word “baith” used by elephant trainers
in Nepal, and sitting down. Repeating this often enough forms such a
strong habit that it becomes a “second nature”: when the animal again
hears the word, he automatically sits down without even considering any
other options.
This basis is the same in all animal training methods, including both
animal-friendly ones and those that use pain. What is different between
methods is how the trainer makes the animal to perform the action in
the first place, so that he can then start repeating it in order to
form the association between the word and the action. In Positive
Learning, techniques such as pressure-release, rewarding, and
habituation are used in order to lead the animal to performing the
necessary movements, which in turn lets the trainer to create
connection in the elephant's mind between each action and the specific
command word, after which the performance is further rehearsed to
precision.
Rewarding and pressure-release are two ways of motivating an animal to
perform a specific action, and habituation is a way to make animal
behave calmly with new and potentially scary things by introducing them
gradually. For more details of these techniques, please see the
illustrated middle and right-hand columns on this page.
The Difference to Punishing
In scientific terms, rewarding is called positive reinforcement, as the
correct action is enforced by giving something nice, and
pressure-release is called negative reinforcement, as the correct
action is rewarded by removing something unpleasant. The term negative
reinforcement is sometimes confused with punishment, but there is an
important difference. Negative reinforcement is rewarding: at the
moment when an animal performs a correct action, the trainer releases a
slightly irritating touch, thus resulting in a comfortable feeling.
Punishment is inflicting pain as a reaction to an animal's action (or,
as often is the case, as a reaction to the fact that the animal does
not understand what the trainer wants), resulting in fear and stress.
|
|
Above:
Practicing stopping and backing up on a
T-shaped training arena at the elephant camp of Bardia National Park in
Nepal, during a WEPA workshop in October 2010.
Read more about:
Key
Concepts
of improved training
Handling
of a
trained elephant
Frequently
Asked
Questions
Science and Experience
Combined
The Positive Learning Method has been developed for WEPA by Dr. Andrew
McLean, a scientist specializing in animal learning, and by Laurie
Pond, the programme development manager of Australia Zoo with 20 years
of experience on training large mammals. The method
continues to be developed further, and the details can be tailored to
fit the specific needs of different environments and different types of
tasks the elephants need to learn.
WEPA is not the first to introduce elephant-friendly training and
handling, however. There are some individual elephant trainers with
excellent elephant-friendly skills in various parts of Asia, as well as
in well-managed zoos in different corners of the world. What WEPA can
contribute in addition to this is the scientific basis, which makes it
possible to maximize both the reliability and the well-being of
elephants at the same time.
The
calmness of
elephants trained with
WEPA's Positive Learning Method makes the training a safer for trainers
and elephants alike. In the photo above, senior staff member Rajendra
Panwar (on the right) and mahout Rajbir Chaudhary (on the elephant) are
training a three-year-old male elephantcalled Kush Prasad at the
Elephant Breeding Centre of Chitwan,
Nepal during a WEPA workshop in 2007.
|
|
