Elephant Art Could Become Big

Elephants don't have an easy life. They're too big for their own good. They eat too much. They need too much area to roam around in while they look for food. While they look for food they damage trees, shrubs, gardens, people--whatever is in their way. African elephants face the ivory problem: they've got it; man wants it. Asian elephants face hunger because they can't find work.

In October 1997, six Thai elephants were sent to Indonesia as temps to help government officials round up wild elephants. Five of the six are still in Indonesia, according to the Reuters news service, which didn't say what happened to the sixth. Thai animal rights activists want the elephants to be brought home so they can receive better care. But, according to Reuters, the Indonesian forestry department says the elephants must "complete their contract." Elephants should never enter into a contract without a good lawyer.

In Thailand, according to James Mclean in another Reuters article, Thai elephants are enrolling in three art academies to learn to paint. It seems that two Russians, Alex Melamid and Vitaly Komar, think that elephant art will sell in the United States for about $250 and the income will help feed the elephants. At that price, one painting will feed an elephant for about a week.

Elephant painting may sound like a big joke but it's really an attempt to save elephants now that they've lost their traditional work because logging has been banned. Mclean reports that a few desperate elephant handlers have killed their elephants because they could no longer feed them. He quotes an official of the Wild Animal Rescue Foundation of Thailand as saying that the domestic elephant population has dropped in two years from 3,600 to 3,100.

Elephants have an artistic problem, however. Mclean reports that elephants don't paint recognizable images the way chimpanzees do. They paint abstracts, and it is the elephant's handler who decides what colors to use and when the painting is finished. Elephants do appear to be able to tell the difference between colors, Mclean reports Melamid as saying, but if the handlers are the decision makers in this art collaboration, then the elephants will develop regional styles just as human artists do.

Other Thai elephants hang around the nation's capital, Bangkok, making a living by begging and performing tricks. Police have been cracking down on these "street elephants," according to another news source.

Meanwhile, in Johannesburg, a court just ruled that 30 young Botswanna elephants must be returned to the wild instead of being sold to safari parks and zoos. In this big case, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals won its argument that the animals had been shackled and whipped by Indonesian trainers. The elephants will be placed in three private game reserve.

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