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The Last of His Kind

Rajan is one of the few salt water swimming elephants on Earth. Initially trained to carry out brutal logging work in the Andaman Islands in the 70’s, he was forced to swim with massive loads. Now retired, at 60 years old he is the last of the group to survive.

Meet Rajan. He is a 60 year old Asian elephant who was brought to the Andaman Islands, off the coast of India, for logging in the 1970’s.

Along with a small group of ten elephants, he was brutally forced to learn how to swim in the ocean, so that they could bring the logged trees to nearby boats and then eventually swim on to the next island.

When logging was eventually banned in 2002, Rajan was out of a job. He is the last one of the group to survive and is living out his days on Havelock Island, walking in the sunlit forests and swimming in the ocean.

Elephant on morning walk Andamans 2
Shafts of sun highlight beautiful colors in the forests of the Andaman Islands, as Rajan takes his early morning walk in the jungle.

I spent over a week with Rajan and his Mahout (caretaker) Nazroo who have been together for more than thirty years.

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The friendship between gentle Rajan and Nazroo was so special that my time with them left an incredible impression on me.

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Rajan testing the waters as Nazroo stays close by.

The bond between gentle Rajan and his Mahout is very strong — they trust one another implicitly.

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Rajan is getting quite old now but he still likes to swim a couple of times a week.

Rajan truly is the last of his kind. When he dies, we will probably never see an ocean swimming elephant again.

CLIENT: BBC

UPDATE: Sadly, Rajan died in 2016

 

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