Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 97
A rainbow arches over the temple-fi lled city of Luang Prabang. The lush hill
country of Laos, at the center of Asia's elephant population, was once home to immense
numbers of wild elephants.
Such uncontrolled behavior is not the elephant's fault. Male elephants
periodically undergo
musth
, a time when testosterone peaks and glands on
the sides of the head become activated and ooze foul secretions into the ele-
phant's mouth. As if this were not enough, it appears that the swollen glands
may cause blinding headaches. Elephants in
musth
have to be confi ned and in
some cases chained down.
The unpredictability of elephant behavior means that the wild and
domestic gene pools of the Asian elephant have remained commingled, and
that it is impossible to determine when elephant domestication began. It
seems likely, however, that attempts at domestication started thousands of
years ago.
