Life as an elephant man

Senior elephant keeper Andrew Coers shares a tender moment with Kashin. Picture / Paul Estcourt

Obviously, Andrew Coers is not an elephant. He only weighs 73kg compared to Kashin's 3400kg or so and Burma is nearly 3000kg. He is blond and wiry where they are grey and massive.

But in many ways Coers is an elephant. As head elephant keeper at Auckland Zoo his role is to be a leader in the herd, not by pretending he is an elephant but by providing the girls with everything they need so they have the security and freedom to be as elephant-like as they can in captivity.

Kashin and Burma look to their young elephant guru for security in a world sometimes bewildered by Rolling Stones concerts and back-firing trucks.

That security is all important in the elephant world, especially the captive elephant world.

Elephants are sociable animals with a strong sense of family and hierarchy. In the wild, the herd follows the lead of the head elephant, usually an older matriarch who has vast knowledge of where to feed, where to wallow and where to move on to when the food is scarce.

"That's why I would never class myself as a matriarch," says Coers, "because I would never grant myself that much credit. But certainly I'm fulfilling certain roles that matriarch or that leader animal would fulfil."

An elephant without security can be dangerous, says the 25-year-old, who does not want to be portrayed as elephant-mad, but who wears his deep affection and respect for his highly intelligent and enormous charges on his sleeve.

Auckland Zoo is considered a world leader in the way it manages elephants. Not many zoos use the hands-on approach these days, where keepers have such trust and control of their animals that they can take them for a walk around the zoo and sometimes let perfect strangers get up close.

The Herald has come to the zoo to see Coers in action with the elephants after hearing that later this year he is off to his first international elephant conference where he will promote the zoo's programme. It is a rare chance for him to get together with others who work with elephants in zoos or in conservation programmes.

The conference is being held by the Elephant Managers Association which is made up of people who care about elephants, be they endangered Asian elephants, like Kashin and Burma, or the bigger-eared and weightier Africans.

Says the EMA website: "A world without elephants isn't much of a world."

Coers agrees, and if you have ever had the privilege of passing the time of day with an elephant, even being allowed to scrub down a 3400kg gentle giant, you would agree, too.

The conference is serious stuff for Coers. He hopes to pick up some tips on how to make the life of his elephants a little better - but equally importantly, he hopes to pass on his own knowledge.

Kashin's life has vastly improved since the old days when she lived mainly confined in the concrete elephant house. Back then she had weight issues and swayed from side to side from boredom.

We meet on the morning stroll near Darwin's cafe. Coers and two others in the elephant team are escorting Kashin and Burma on a walk around the zoo.

Introductions are made and Kashin, especially, is quite happy to have her trunk rubbed, lifting it up not to shake hands but to sniff breath.

She likes coffee breath, keeper Corinne says. Throughout the morning, Kashin comes up for a sniff and sometimes blows her surprisingly clean-smelling breath back.

Conversation with Coers on the walk goes like this: "The relationship that we develop with these guys is amazing, it takes a lot of ... okay Boo [that's Burma's nickname], hup, have some leaves, do you want those ones or not? [he rattles off a command in Sri Lankan which means come over here] ... so the relationship we develop does take a long time."

When we arrive at where the food is made up and feijoas are eyed up hungrily by the elephants, Coers says, "Burma, back up, watch out for the car, back up Boo, don't hit the car ... "
It's a parked car and Burma-Boo does not hit it.

Soon they will go back to their paddock for some more food - elephants have slow digestion and need to graze often - and later in the afternoon they will have a walk in the fenced area of trees behind the zoo.

"We just let them go, you know, and they can be elephants ... They'll go and forage and start eating or Burma will chuck dirt all over herself and roll around and be an idiot."

The ability to be able to let elephants go free, albeit fenced in, has taken years of hard work and training. Coers has developed his relationship with the elephants over six years, bit by bit, learning from previous keepers and is at the point where he trusts them and they trust him.

He has learned to read their behaviour, he knows when 37-year-old Kashin wants food or 23-year-old, high-spirited Burma needs to play.

To the casual visitor the elephants might not look that different but Coers and the team love their distinctive, sometimes cheeky, sometimes naughty personalities.

Kashin is dominant over Burma but Burma is constantly trying it on with her heavier mate.

The zoo is putting in a second entrance to the barn where the elephants shelter and sleep because younger, faster Burma will block the entrance with her massive backside, keeping Kashin out in the rain while Burma eats the food.

But sometimes Burma pushes too far and Kashin asserts herself. Once she was eating Kashin's food and Kashin - who likes her food very much, says Coers - suddenly kicked the younger elephant in the head.

"Kashin surprised the heck out of me, actually ... the quickness was just like, wow, you know, and that's because she was eating her food.

"Kashin normally lets her get away with it and then all of a sudden she breaks and snaps, like, 'No, that's enough Burma', whack!"

When you look at the size of Coers compared with Kashin and Burma, there is no contest. Either elephant could knock him senseless any time they wanted. But Coers does not fear them.

"We make out that they don't know they can do that because if they knew they could they probably would. Otherwise we're not going to be secure for them, are we? We're not going to stop that truck or stop that tiger from getting them."

Kashin is lying on her side, a slumbering mountain of elephant. If she wasn't an elephant you'd swear she was purring.

I am hosing her down with warm water and scrubbing at her tough leathery skin - "put plenty of elbow into it," Coers says - and now and then stroking the coarse, wiry hair which sprouts around her body.

"Lift her ear up and scrub under there, too," says Coers, who is doing the same to Burma in the next stall.

Kashin's ear is quite a weight. Any sudden movement could flatten me but she doesn't even open her eyes, just blows gently through her trunk.

It is magical. Coers says I am having an "elephant moment". He has elephant moments all day long, and he is happy to share them.