(NEPAL) Polo Solo: How the Silliness of Humans Causes the Suffering of Others

[Guest guest]

From http://www.nepalitimes.com/issue/379/NepaliPan/14292

NepaliPan: Jigme Gaton

 

Polo Solo: How the Silliness of Humans Causes the Suffering of Others

 

When I first heard there was such a sport as elephant polo I was taken

aback. And when the annual deluge of coverage of this sport happens like it

did last month, the questions that came to mind were: ³why?² and ³how²?

 

I played my fair share of hockey as a kid (which seems to be the cruder

north American version of elephant polo) and I was confused. How do you get

something the size of a TATA truck to play polo? I see lots of elephants

here in Kathmandu, but it's always from the backside, stuck in some

motorbike jam. So it was hard for me to conceive two teams of these slo-mo

mammals zooming as if they were skaters trying to score a goal.

 

Of course I knew the answer to ³how². Elephants are trained to play the

sport just as they are trained to do any other task for humans, by being

bullied and manipulated, and in many cases tortured.

 

When I first visited Chitwan National Park, I was a guest at the well-known

resort and was literally forced by the host to take an elephant ride. Not

wanting to offend, I mounted Limbu, who was the same age as myself, 47, and

born in September, so also a Virgo. I had never been that close to an

elephant and would have been very content to just feed him some kibbles and

stroke his proboscis, which reminded me of my own.

 

I apologized to Limbu for having to climb aboard the viewing contraption

strapped to his back, but I did, squeezing into a wooden basket filled with

a half-dozen tourists. The insanity of the situation would have made me

laugh, but I got close enough to see Limbu¹s scars from repeated beatings

from his trainer, and to note his battered feet and thighs from being made

to crash through the jungle balancing a boatload of humans, and then being

punished by his trainer for almost dumping us into a swamp when his leg gave

out. At that point he looked a lot older than 47, and his sad tired demeanor

was very depressing.

 

That people would actually organise a sporting event (funded mostly by

alcohol manufacturers, and like the sailing sport industry, hosted by a

major watch manufacturer) are we really to get out and cheer for our

favourite team of polo pachyderms chasing a ball, as in this year¹s Kings

Cup? Haven¹t we banned pit-bull and cock fights? Haven't we got rid of

bull-fighting? Aren¹t rodeo and circus ticket sales way down? Well, sadly

not. But all of these human activities do seem very old-school and from a

generation past.

 

Today we seem to be more content watching the World¹s Stupidest Pet Tricks

and The Most Fabulous Animal Rescues on Animal Planet, where our active

participation is with the remote control instead of any kind of wicket or

ball or out on a field of any kind. The creation of this sport has to do

with a simple formula: Humans are urbanising and deforesting the wild

habitat of these magnificent mammals faster then animal activists and

environmentalists can scream alarm.

 

Civil unrest in rural areas (normally habituated by elephants) is on the

rise worldwide, meaning that conservation areas are becoming disrupted, if

not abandoned. In Nepal the conflict turned our parks into war zones, making

for a very unhappy place for any being to live, yet they still are

organising elephant polo as a last ditch effort to attract tourists. The

pressures of human population growth is also pushing animals like elephants

to the brink of insanity. Consider the recent news reports from India and

Nepal about the shooting of so-called wild killer bull elephants but mostly

adolescent teens who were mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore.

 

So why elephant polo, and why now? Here is what I think: to give a new

generation of elephants with no place to go and nothing to do a job: the

age-old job of amusing human masters and spinning off advertising dollars.

It¹s just another business to replace the lost ivory one. Instead of doing

the right thing, preserving dwindling habitats, developing the elephant polo

industry looks to be the winning and more profitable ticket for those owning

the refugee-elephant population.

 

And next week, look out for the Elephant Festival in Sauraha where the

animals will be forced to play football, take part in 100-metre dash races

and the lot. Anything to make these magnificient animals anthropogenic.

 

www.stopelephantpolo.com

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