Elephant Masturbater

Collecting elephant semen is a very sticky business.

Manual Collection, as the questionably disturbing procedure is known, involves forceful stimulation of the elephant’s rectum and a small team of scientists. These guys deserve medal for species preservation.

The team from the Thai Elephant Conservation Centre, (TECC), collects the semen for genetic and reproductive research. It’s not just a simple matter of employing a female elephant for eye candy and waiting on the result. To be used scientifically, the semen has to be collected and preserved in a controlled environment. It’s also a matter of ensuring elephant conservation through planned pregnancy. Elephants are not Casanovas, nor do they have a wild libido, so scientists have to intervene in the natural process.

Dr. Sittidet Maha from the TECC describes manual collection as “a hand massage in the anus of the elephant”. It’s more like a vigorous penetration of the elephant’s rectum, as a gloved human arm reaches in to stimulate the prostate – the whole arm. Dr. Maha thinks that the elephants don’t mind the intrusion because “it feels good for them when they ejaculate, so they like it”. It helps that the elephants are previously introduced to the process through regular examination and manual fecal removal when constipated. They may not get candy and roses before the deed is done, but at least they are trained to tolerate it.

The mission of the TECC collection team is to help fortify dwindling elephant numbers by giving them a hand, quite literally. The method currently in use was discovered quite by accident, when scientists were trying to help the elephants with constipation. While it may seem more logical – and less gross – to simply perform phallic masturbation on the elephant, this process has its issues. Elephant penis’ are very sensitive and can flail around uncontrollably if not handled correctly. At more than one metre long, this can actually be dangerous. Scientists have been known to end up knocked out or with black eyes for even trying to stimulate an elephant phallus.

Manual collection begins with soft and slow movements which increase in intensity during the procedure. The elephants aren’t drugged and they don’t get soft music, scientists in lingerie or a post-coital cigarette. Just cold – and likely odd-feeling – latex covered arms. In Dr. Maha’s experience “the process can take 10-15 mins or sometimes longer depending on the elephant”. The semen is then taken back to the lab for cryopreservation in liquid nitrogen at -196˚C.

The team at TECC collect the semen once per month and use it to research elephant genetics. When they are ready to inseminate a female elephant, they pick the male and female pair with the best physical characteristics to produce healthy babies, which helps ensure the population. Sperm is collected from bull elephants “18-30 years of age and not more”. Dr. Maha explains that “elephants are like humans this way. If we collect from old elephants, we don’t get good quality samples” so he seeks out the young pickings.

It’s a messy undertaking, but somebody has to do it. Dr. Maha picks trained veterinary scientists for his team because “some people think it is not clean to do this, that it is a very dirty job. Only a veterinarian can do this and not get upset.” Anyone but a dedicated veterinarian would surely experience some kind of traumatic flashback after regularly masturbating an elephant rectum with their arm. The people on his team care about elephants and the conservation of the species enough to simply look the other way and put science before human perception.

Other forms of elephant masturbation for semen collection are also used. Some scientists have had success with rectal electrostimulation which involves a rectal probe that is inserted into the elephant’s anus and a light shock treatment. A team in Washington has developed an artificial vagina and has trained elephants to use it as a means of collection. Surprisingly, the semen collected in this way shows lower motility, or performance output, than the method of collection used by Dr. Maha and his team. Manual rectal probing seems to be an elephant fetish.

The TECC impregnates only 3-4 female elephants per year due to the incredible length of their menstrual cycles, which can last up to 4 months. The gestation period is 22 months, which has to be annoyingly long for the females, but accounts for the few pregnancies per year that the TECC oversees. While it may seem distasteful to some, the work of Dr. Maha and his team is a valuable contribution to the elephant population and to Thailand itself.