Anna Frykfors von Hekkel
Evaluation of the diet and Body Condition Score of two captive
elephant populations in Sri Lanka.
What is the nutritional quality of the captive elephants’ diet, and how does it relate to their body
condition score (bcs)?
I was attracted to this research project for several
reasons. The most fundamental was that I would be
spending a month surrounded by elephants, rather than
microscopes and petri dishes. The same principle
extended to the weather, as well as the location. Sri
Lanka is a predominantly Buddhist society and I was
interested to gain some insight into cultural and
religious differences in the approach to animals there.
Another attraction of this project was the potential to
“make a difference”. There is a significant lack of data
and information surrounding the diet of the captive
Asian elephant and this shortage means that feeding
regimes are based on those used for African elephants.
This was a chance to evaluate their current diet, tailor
feeding regimes to the physiological needs of the
elephants, and add to the current knowledgebase base.
The concept of this project was essentially to measure everything going in to the elephants, subtract
everything coming out and end up with what was being utilised in between. Simple in theory, less so
in practice. Numerous difficulties surfaced from day
one, for example how to physically weigh several
hundreds of kilos of elephant food and faeces, how to
weigh it all during monsoon rain, and what to do about
the faeces potentially floating down the river. On top of
that there was the significant language barrier.
Luckily the weather more or less held out, I became
semi-proficient in pigeon sign language and the
mahouts demonstrated their skills by getting the
elephants to weigh their own food before taking it to
their stalls. I was so amazed and dumbfounded by this,
that by the time an overenthusiastic elephant was
dropping an 80 kilo log from a considerable height, it
was too late (/past the point of no return). The scales
broke (needless to say) and we were back to square
one.
Anna Frykfors von Hekkel
While the scales were being fixed I moved on
to the second site. This involved handling,
wheelbarrowing and fishing for a total of XYZ
kilos of faeces on a daily basis. On the up-side,
Sri Lanka is a country full of excuses for a
party and I had the luck to be there for a
double celebration (Vesak and Poya, or in
other words, Buddha’s birthday and a full
moon day). Paper lanterns appeared outside
every house, local families were dishing out
free food, juice and ice cream to anyone and
everyone willing to queue. A huge procession
of lights and performers was held in the city
and it all combined to create an incredible atmosphere. That was probably the moment I realised
what a privilege it was to be there.
Having attempted it once already, the following data collection fell in to place nicely and I practiced
a very basic Singhalese vocabulary, centred mainly around elephants and elephant related words.
I hope that the results of this project will be a starting point for further development in the care and
husbandry of Asian elephants, and that future studies are able to build on.
Working on this project was a once in a lifetime experience and it would not have been possible
without the generous funding from the BVA Travel Grant. I would like to thank the BVA Overseas
group for their generous contribution, for which I am very grateful.