Why do captive elephants become violent ?
One theory says that they might be suffering from a psychiatric condition called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PT SD. I have written about this in an earlier post. It has three core features.
1) Hyper arousal - Difficulty to relax or fall asleep. Exaggerated startle response to minor stimuli, increased heart rate etc.
2) Avoidance of anything that reminds one of the original trauma.
3) Flashbacks of the past trauma, Re experiencing the trauma as sudden bursts of memory.
The wild elephants after capturing, are subjected to cruel torturing by the mahouts and trainer elephants. This induces severe life threatening fear in them leading to PT SD.
During the festival amid the mob and the loudly beating drums, they have flashbacks of the trauma, re experience the trauma. This makes them mortally afraid and they react violently.
ഇന്ത്യ
4 weeks ago
2 comments:
looking at the number of elephants paraded out in kerala, dont you think the occurences of violence are comparatively rare to point to a particular syndrome ? Further, seeing that many violent occurrences are caused by the same animal exhibiting the said behaviour, can it be just a normal variation in temperament of the animal rather than an ailment of the mind ? If it was P T S D, Should not the maie and female be affected in relatively equal proportion since presumably they undergo similar training ? Mark how they recover in a few minutes. Is that possible in P T S D ? Thanj you.
Thaks for the comment, Sashi. Shall reply in the next post
Post a Comment