Elephant Polo : Attorney and elephant expert adds voice

[Guest guest]

Hello,

It gives me pleasure to say that my friend and colleague Lisa Kane,

an elephant expert based in the USA has now agreed to lend her voice to the

anti elephant polo campaign. Lisa, a practicing attorney, began her legal

career as counsel to the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, specializing

in animal health and meat inspection issues. She has written, traveled and

spoken on elephant issues since 2002. Lisa has served on a panel of elephant

welfare experts advising University of Bristol researchers charged with

investigating zoo elephant welfare in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

 

Lisa was also one of the first people to express her wholehearted support

for the prohibition of elephants in captivity in zoos in India. I was very

touched when she sent me a personal message of appreciation when I wrote my

views on the subject.(Posted on AAPN).

 

Kindly note Lisa's involvement in humane elephant management in captivity

that is a concomitant factor when considering elephant polo. The campaign

has indeed touched upon it in the past when Roy Jones, former Wildlife

Project Manager of WSPA mentioned a humane elephant training programme that

is run by WSPA in collaboration with WWF Finland in Nepal.(This is on the

website). WWF is also involved in treating elephants in Assam in India.

 

I would request Mr Azam Siddiqui to load Lisa's message on his website.

There is no problem if anyone wants to use selected material for reference

from the website or intends to join the campaign provided such moves are

done responsibly and with a minimum level of consensus.

 

I also must add that Mr Naresh Kadyan has done a lot for this cause by

fighting a court case for the elephants in Jaipur and deserves credit for

his work. His efforts are laudable.

 

My involvement was and is on a purely personal scale. The elephants need

more advocates but coordination has to be done with mutual trust and

understanding.

 

Thanks a ton, Lisa for your kindness and assistance. We are sure it will go

a long way towards helping our pachyderm friends in distress.

 

Good wishes,

 

Dear ,

 

I am an attorney, author, one-time member of AZA and co-founder of the

Coalition for Captive Elephant Welfare. Among other projects, the Coalition

sponsored a conference at Tufts University Cummings School of Veterinary

Medicine on issues germane to captive elephant welfare in 2006. Conference

proceedings were published in 2009 by Tufts University Cummings School of

Veterinary Medicine's Center for Animals and Public Policy in *An Elephant

in the Room: The Science and Welfare of Elephants in Captivity. *The book

was edited by Debra Forthman, Ph.D., David Hancocks, Paul Waldau, JD and

me. The book's contents are freely available at:

www.elephantsincaptivity.org.

 

Since ancient times, the people of India have used elephants for every kind

of human activity, from logging to warfare. Elephants have also been used to

entertain the public. Contemporary use of elephants for polo is a a modern

expression of this ancient tradition.

 

As in ancient times, the training, control and management of the elephants

in polo games depends on the use of bullhooks. This cruel instrument was

invented long before the advent of modern scientific knowledge about

elephants, including their social behavior and intelligence, or about the

significant distress, some would say terror and pain, associated with it.

Bullhooks are a brutal tool used for two essential purposes: to inflect pain

(negative reinforcement or punishment) or to remind the elephant that the

human holding the tool is fully capable of inflicting pain (stimulus cue).

 

Because elephant polo cannot be played without the use of bullhooks, it is

by definition a cruel sport. And because this cruelty is inflicted only for

the purpose of entertaining us, it is the worst kind of cruelty, merely

gratuitous.

 

There is simply no place in a modern society like India's, one committed to

the pursuit of science and the highest human ethics, for gratuitous cruelty.

Sadly, cruelty and the status quo always have a depressingly high number of

advocates. It is time for a change. It is time that kindness and the desire

to end cruelty find their advocates among those with influence, those with

power. For all these reasons, I respectfully call upon India's authorities

to take those steps necessary to end this barbaric sport.

 

Lisa Kane, JD