Elephant Breeding Center — Attraction in Ratnanagar

Wow and wow!! I spent a good couple of hours wandering around the elephant breeding centre while many people whizzed through, taking photographs without really stopping. I am glad I did.

I read reviews where people complained about the elephants being chained. I took the time to find out why, chatting to a couple of the elephant handlers to understand how it operates. They explained that the elephants are free in the jungle for six hours per day, grazing, socialising and eating. They return to the centre each afternoon so they can be protected from poachers and their babies protected from tigers. These families of elephants form part of a government re-wilding program. They do good work.

The mothers look healthy and reasonably happy, interacting with their handlers without any aggression on either side. The babies are playful and content. They are clearly well fed and well loved, their handlers attentive to their needs.

We had an interesting commotion when a wild bull elephant entered the area. Apparently, he has fathered all of the babies and some of the mothers. He has never been in captivity and the handlers were extremely wary of his movements. He has a long history of killing humans, but is left in peace. I was struck by how powerful he was, especially as he was at least 50% larger than the females.

The babies have some training to keep them and their handlers safe, which is understandable for the success of the re-wilding program. It is very clear that there is zero exploitation here.

It is worth spending some time at the elephant breeding centre to see some great...

A very beautiful place where You sometimes get to see the legendary wild elephant alongside the other domesticated elephants, who is locally called 'Ronaldo'. This elephant is bigger in size from all the elephants present there and has two long and pointy trunks. You can easily recognize it from a distance as it does not have a tail which is very unusual for an elephant, rumors say that it lost its tail during a tiger attack, its not a fact as people tend to say various stories about the elephant, every person in chitwan can tell you something about this particular elephant which is quiet famous around chitwan. There may not be any adult who doesn't know ronaldo hatti in chitwan. It is believed that most of the child born in the breeding center are the offsprings of the legendary elephant Ronaldo. During the mating seasons you will very often see ronaldo in the premises of the breeding center. Other wild elephants dont even dare to come close to it as it is very short tempered one and tends to scare away all other wild elephants around its close proximity. You will be notified in the gate of the breeding center that wild elephant is in the premises and requested to be careful not to go near the elephant as it is not domesticated and has very short temper. And loud noise can scare it and cause the elephant to perform some reckless behaviour which could lead to injury to...

I’m not convinced of the worth of this program. Breeding centre staff spoke no English, so no questions could be asked, and while the tiny museum was informative and interesting it seemed to be out of date (again, I couldn’t find out how old till later- maybe 2005?). Museum info sold its self as a “captive breeding” program for “conservation” of the species... yet no animals are released into the wild (on purpose), they are breeding only for human use and entertainment.

The wild male elephant they bizarrely allow through broken purposefully unmaintained exterior fences to breed with the chained captive females has killed several people. They call him Ronaldo, because of the way he tosses people around. His tusks have been trimmed as a result.

Females kept here have one job, and that is to breed, these animals are not ridden by tourists- but their daughters will be. They are taken out for a jungle walk daily at around 10:30am, if baby...