Suji

This portrait required a slightly different approach than what I was used to. A few times people have asked me to portray an elephant. I was lucky because I spend time with these animals, but only with the domesticated elephants of the Conservation Response Unit (CRU, see project description). Unfortunately, I have not had the chance to see a wild elephant. However, I have learned a lot about their way of living, their interactions with humans, I have been able to see the way the media portrays them, and have heard multiple stories by locals. So, I’ll try to do my best with portraying the point of view of an elephant, imagining the life that Suji, a female elephant of the Sampoiniet camp might have had.

Suji is about 35 years old and weighs over 2 ½ tons.Today, she is one of the six resident elephants of the Sampoiniet’s camp, including her daughter Rosa, born eight months ago by mating with a wild elephant near the camp. Unlike Rosa, Suji has not always been a domestic elephant. Her first fifteen years, Suji lived in the jungles of Sumatra, in a herd with about 30 individuals around Paya Bakong, Soth Aceh (I do not know the exact location of Suji’s capture and I do not know if she came from this particular herd, however, I do know there is a large population in this area, which has created many conflicts). Suji’s early life was simple, stay with the herd, eat, find places to rest, wash in the river, and continue on the same path every year. It is on this frequently travelled path that Suji could see the changes to her habitat. First, concrete roads were put in, in which Suji had to cross, and later had to travel alongside. Trees began to get cut down and in there place a perfect line of palm trees. Originally, their paths were a great distance from where villagers were, but gradually, over time humans expanded their villages and plantations of bananas and coconuts to the point of the elephants habitat, closer to the path that Suji traveled for years. This provided new sources of food for the herd, but increased the number of interactions between humans and elephants.

At first, the elephants and Suji’s herd did not represent a real threat and they were rarely seen. But with human expansion, she saw humans regularly, cutting down trees or next to the paths and feeding grounds that she traveled. There, the humans made a lot of noise, they used firecrackers and fireworks, which were used to frighten the elephants and drive them back into the forest. At this point, Suji began to fear humans. An elephant in her herd had been poisoned, and another male elephant in her herd had been captured by the government (I learned that elephants became more aggressive after the government began capturing elephants, humans began to be seen as a threat). Even though humans were upset with elephants for eating their crops, Suji did not understand why the fields were still there, bigger and more of them each time she returned on her path. Some farmers had added fences, but it was easy for her and the herd to destroy them or open the doors (I went to the scene of an attack once, where the farmer showed us the distinct footprint of an elephant that was able to open his gate). She was in one of these fields the day she was captured, and she was no longer scared of firecrackers.

Suji was then sent to Sareh, the government camp, where she ended up with fifty other elephants like her. She suffered through severe, early training tactics, all in an effort so people could approach her, ride her, and eventually she became domesticated. In the camp, she spent her life attached to a chain. The only food, banana branches, was an insufficient quantity. Many elephants did not survive the training at the Sareh camp, but Suji held on. She even got to know her mahout to the point that she can now recognized him. He gave Suji respect and greatly valued her, many have described their relationship as a real friendship. After her training, Suji has learned to respond mainly to voice command.

In 2009, Suji again suffered a “relocation” to the Sampoiniet CRU. Unlike Sareh, at Sampoiniet she often goes into the forest to walk for hours with other domestic elephants (for patrols), she is better nourished and has become a curiousity for the local people who are not aggressive toward her. She has also established relationships with other elephants from the camp. The one Suji likes in particular is Wingu (there are “two elephant couples” at the camp according to the mahouts)! Sometimes, Suji will travel back to the fields where she once fed, but this time it is to push other wild elephants back in order to prevent them from being captured, injured, or killed. Occasionally, she even has to fight against these wild elephants. In some cases, the wild elephants are older and her presence alone is not sufficient (the older elephants have a higher hierarchical position). Overall, her presence deters other elephants, who then return to the forest. At the end, Suji helps reduce conflicts between humans and elephants, and contributes to the survival of her species.

Suji would probably have preferred to stay in the wild her whole life. From where she comes there is no support system like the community ranger project (see portrait of the community ranger) or the CRUs. Lately, the local population of Paya Bakong found a wild baby elephant in one of the fields destroyed by a herd of elephants. They chained the baby to a tree and fed him, but did not want to deliver the baby elephant to the competent authorities because the government “doesn’t take” the wild elephants living in this part of Aceh. The capture of elephants by the government to reduce human-elephant conflict is no longer allowed in Indonesia, but the threat of wild elephants being killed, captured or poisoned by local populations is still very high. Today, Suji could not return to the wild because she is to accustomed to humans, but she can help reduce the threat to the rest of her species.