Yesterday my friend Marc forwarded a link of an elephant painting a picture at a tourist camp in Thailand.  Perhaps you’ve seen it floating around YouTube?

Marc asked me what I thought and I told him, but instead of just sharing it with him, I figured more may want to know whether elephants really paint.  Below is my take on the issue:

From what I’ve heard from such elephant experts as Soraida Salwala (founder of the Friends of the Asian Elephant Hospital), Lek Chailert (founder of the Elephant Nature Park), Pat Derby (founder of Performing Animals Welfare Society) and Don Tayloe (director of “The Last Elephants in Thailand”), elephant paintings, such as the one pictured below, are a learned trick that elephants at tourist camps are forced to learn by their owners/handlers, similar to how elephants in circuses are trained/beaten (depending upon your take on their methods) until they learn how to walk on their hind legs, raise a human above their head, etc.  Some elephants take to painting more “naturally”, others are beaten or have a paint brush taped to their trunk in order to learn how to hold the paint brush “correctly”. Then, what you can’t see in the video is, the handler will then tap, push or guide the elephant’s trunk to create the “correct” picture.

While at the Thai Elephant Conservation Center in August 2009, I filmed the elephant painting act for my documentary, “The Eyes of Thailand“, and I have footage of the handler tapping on the elephant’s trunk out of the view of most of the audience of Thai school children.  Also, one elephant chose pink instead of green to paint the leaves on the tree and the handler actually hit the elephant because that was “wrong”.

With such strict training and protocol for what’s “right” and “wrong”, I have a hard time calling these elephant paintings “art”. However, I do believe that elephants are intelligent, emotional and creative beings that like to express themselves.  For this reason, some zoos in the U.S. (such as the Milwaukee Zoo referenced in a May 7, 2008 article in the L.A. Times) give elephants easels and paint brushes to paint abstractly on their own.  But, this is mainly as a distraction from boredom the elephants experience in captivity within the zoos and it only works occasionally.  Given their own agency, I do not think any elephant in the wild would choose to paint in nature–they would be too busy enjoying life as an elephant!

You can learn more about elephant painting by viewing the trailer for Don Tayloe’s “The Last Elephants in Thailand” here.

Check out past blogs about elephant painting here.

-Windy Borman

Director/Producer, The Eyes of Thailand

Below is the press release from Catherine Doyle, the elephant Campaign Director at In Defense of Animals:

Feds Slap Los Angeles Zoo with Fine in Death of Elephant
http://www.savezooelephants.com/news_releases_10.html

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

July 20, 2009

USDA cites failure to provide veterinary care

Los Angeles, Calif.–The U.S. Department of Agriculture has hit the Los Angeles Zoo with a stipulated penalty of $3,281 for failure to provide veterinary care in the 2006 death of the elephant Gita, according to information just provided to In Defense of Animals (IDA) by the USDA.

“It’s outrageous that the USDA took so long to come to this pathetic conclusion, especially when the L.A. Zoo’s negligence caused Gita to suffer a slow and agonizing death,” said Catherine Doyle, IDA campaign director. “The paltry fine is nothing more than a slap on the wrist for the L.A. Zoo. It’s a sad reflection on how little value is placed on the life of an endangered species like the Asian elephant.”

Gita’s death on June 10, 2006, made headlines after IDA exposed the zoo’s

photo from LA Unleashed

failure to provide veterinary care to her after she collapsed and was unable to rise. Despite being observed down on the ground overnight, zoo personnel took no action to help the elephant, who died soon after keepers discovered the ailing elephant in the morning. It was estimated that Gita lay suffering for as long as 17 hours.

For decades Gita suffered from painful chronic foot disease and arthritis caused by inadequate conditions for elephants at L.A. Zoo. Her necropsy report noted that her severe arthritis or an extremely infected abscess on her back (caused by Gita leaning against her pen to take pressure off her painful front feet and joints) may have triggered a blood clotting disorder that caused her collapse and subsequent heart failure.

Last month, celebrities and animal protection leaders blasted the USDA for its failure to effectively protect captive-held elephants. In separate letters, Bob Barker and Lilly Tomlin, joined by leading animal protection organizations, criticized the USDA’s lack of timely action on a number of egregious cases involving elephants in zoos and circuses, including Gita’s. Read the letter here

“There simply is no excuse for the USDA’s foot dragging, especially in cases like Gita’s, where the facts are undeniably clear,” said Doyle. “Elephants are suffering and dying prematurely in zoos and circuses. It’s time for the USDA to start seriously enforcing the law and protecting these elephants now, rather than waiting until it’s too late.”

Gita is the fourteenth elephant to die at the Los Angeles Zoo. The zoo currently holds one solitary elephant, Billy.

For more information, please visit www.HelpElephants.com

Please read the news articles by the Associated Press and LA Times based on the above press release.