Journeys with Elephants
Text and images by Molly Ferrill for National Geographic
My first insight into the Burmese people’s respect for elephants came from Ma Lwin, a shopkeeper in a farming village in the western Bago mountains. It was late afternoon when I arrived, covered in sand after a long motorcycle ride across the barren landscape. Inside Ma Lwin’s bamboo hut, she offered me hot tea and scolded me for traveling through dangerous elephant territory.
Back when the mountains were covered in forest, she told me, elephants and people had lived in harmony. But now that their habitat was being cut and burned down for rubber plantations, the elephants were forced to roam long distances searching for food, sometimes knocking down villagers’ fragile bamboo huts and threatening farmers in the fields. Even so, the farmers told me they loved the elephants, calling them “Boe Daw Gyi,” or respected elders.
That was the beginning of months’ spent journeying through forests and villages to document the connection between people and elephants in Myanmar. Children and logging elephants grew up side by side in timber camps. A caravan escorted a sacred white elephant to the capital to be welcomed by the vice president. And one day, park rangers led me to find an elephant preparing to give birth to a calf that, as I watched, took its first breath.
Development often gives us the excuse to discard old traditions and destroy the environment. In many countries, this has allowed elephant populations to dwindle. But observing so many people’s high regard for elephants in Myanmar gives me hope that, in this time of transition, they won’t be left behind.
Young Burmese loggers play with their timber elephant and her new ten-day-old calf in the forest outside of Taungoo, Myanmar.
A newborn elephant takes shelter beneath her mother.
Park rangers watch their patrolling elephant rest after the birth of her newborn calf.
A park ranger helps his patrolling elephant’s calf nurse for the first time.
Children and young elephants are paired at an early age and grow up together in the timber camps of Myanmar, forming a bond that helps them to log the forests when they are older.
A timber elephant and oozie, or elephant caretaker, work to log the forests near Taungoo, Myanmar.
The timber industry has long been one of the country’s biggest industries, but recently new environmental regulations are limiting deforestation, leaving many loggers without an income and without the resources to take care of their timber elephants.
The bond between timber elephants and their oozies is forged at an early age and maintained for life.
Park rangers patrol Alaung Daw Katthapa National Park in Myanmar.
Patrolling with elephants helps park rangers to cover longer distances more quickly in search of poachers in Myanmar’s national parks.
Park rangers and their patrolling elephants pose after a patrol in Alaung Daw Katthapa National Park.
Park rangers relax after a day of work patrolling the forest with their elephants.
A park ranger and veterinarian work together to vaccinate one of their patrolling elephants.
Elephants form an integral part of daily life for park rangers and loggers in Myanmar, and leisure time is often spent with elephants even after the work day is finished.
Children ride on the backs of elephants in a spiritual parade celebrating the children’s becoming novice monks in Bagan, Myanmar.
The “elephant dancers” of Kyaukse, Myanmar are famous for their performances, which they carry out dressed in elaborate elephant costumes. The art form is passed down in the family through generations, and dancers travel around the country performing their mystical routines to invoke good spirits and bring prosperity to those who witness the dance.
An artist prepares an elephant float for a parade in Kyaukse, Myanmar, where elephants play a significant symbolic role in a variety of spiritual ceremonies and festivals.
Caretakers play with retired and abused timber elephants at a touristic center for elephant rehabilitation in Kalaw, Myanmar.
An elephant caretaker takes a retired timber elephant for a walk in Kalaw, Myanmar.
Caretakers bathe a 55-year-old retired timber elephant at a touristic center for elephant rehabilitation in Kalaw, Myanmar.
White elephants are regarded as sacred in Myanmar, and are captured in the wild and brought to a special white elephant center near the government buildings of Naypyitaw in order to bring luck and prosperity to the country. Here, Myanmar’s ninth white elephant is transported to the white elephant center after being captured in the wild in Rakhine state.
Myanmar’s ninth white elephant is taken for her first walk around the Burmese government’s special white elephant center.
Elephants are taken on their daily walk at the government’s white elephant center.
Evening at the white elephant center. The center is adjacent to the Uppatasanti Pagoda in Naypyitaw. Though they are regarded as sacred, it is notable that white elephants are captured and kept in the service of humans.
A young farmer in Bago, Myanmar climbs a structure built to escape from displaced wild elephants that have started to come into the village searching for food after deforestation destroyed their natural habitat and food source.
Link to tearsheet from National Geographic Magazine:
Journeys With Elephants – National Geographic Magazine