Guwahati: In a first of its kind, two mahouts of Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve attended an international training course for positive reinforcement of captive elephants, from Nov 6 to 8 in Lampang, Thailand.
The mahouts, Kasim Ali from Kaziranga range and Sanjeev Pegu from the Agaratoli range, attended the program for elephant handlers, owners and caregivers, which was held at the National Elephant Institute in Lampang.
The three-day international training program was attended by mahouts from Nepal, Laos PDR, Thailand and Sri Lanka, and was organized by the Human-Elephant Learning Programs Foundation (H-ELP).
The attendees were trained by an expert panel comprising of Dr Andrew McLean and Dr Portland Jones from H-ELP and Dr Bhaskar Choudhury from Wildlife Trust of India. Besides practical demonstration on sequence of verbal and signal training, the experts also gave an introduction on the principles and practices aimed at advancing captive elephant welfare through an understanding of the most relevant scientific knowledge available and focused on positive reinforcement techniques.
Kaziranga field director Sonali Ghosh, in a statement, said a positive reinforcement meant adding stimulus to the environment to increase frequency of behaviour.
“The learning process for elephants begin the moment they start to interact with people and their surroundings after their birth. As the aim is to increase specific responses or behaviour, positive reinforcement applies gentler and softer methods of training using reward systems. Traditional elephant training tends to focus on correcting unwanted or undesired behaviour. Positive reinforcement has a more constructive and rehabilitative psychological impact on the elephants and enhance their relationship with their caregivers,” the statement read.
Ghosh said that positive reinforcement had been in use for generations for training animals.