Over the past four years, a distinctive kind of cavalry has been playing an important role in Myanmar’s ongoing civil war. These mounted units consist of around 200 elephants and their mahouts (elephant handlers). They are not engaging in combat, but rather facilitating the resistance forces opposing the military’s rule.
In resistance-held regions of Myanmar, trained elephants are aiding resistance fighters, treading mud trails and hidden jungle routes to transport supplies and equipment. In March and April, after a devastating earthquake in central Myanmar, elephants worked alongside rescuers to clear and repair damaged roads in Sagaing Region. As monsoon set in, they moved across flooded areas, carrying medicine and other supplies on their backs.
Elephants’ handlers are also an important part of the revolution against military rule. Nicknamed “watermelons,” some mahouts are serving as “civic informants,” gathering intelligence for the ethnic armed groups fighting the junta.
“Beyond espionage, they help set up temporary shelters for rebel forces, and support the internally displaced people (IDPs),” said one source in the National Unity Government (NUG), a shadow administration made up of ousted Myanmar parliamentarians and pro-democracy activists.
“Elephants Go Where Roads Cannot”
The use of elephants in Myanmar’s armed struggles is not new. In the past, elephants operated alongside rebel soldiers in the mountainous north, primarily for logistical purposes. Speaking to this correspondent, long-time Myanmar observer and author Bertil Lintner recalled encountering elephants in rebel-controlled areas decades ago in Kachin State.
“Elephants were used by Kachin and Karen rebels long before the present situation. In 1986, I had to ride an elephant after I suffered a severe foot injury,” said Lintner, referring to his time at an elephant training camp run by the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) in the Hukawng Valley.
The elephants would carry jade, timber, food, and arms for the KIA, which developed an elaborate elephant-based transportation network in the thickly forested and resource-rich valley and adjacent districts.
“The Kachin mahouts told me that the elephants would only understand words and commands that were a mix of Shan and Assamese languages,” Lintner said.
“It shows that, traditionally, it was the Hkamti Shans (an ethnic Tai-Shan group in Kachin State) and Assamese mahouts (Morans from Brahmaputra Valley in Assam and eastern Arunachal Pradesh) who had trained elephants in Burma.”
Geographer and author Jacob Shell, who has done extensive research on the elephant riders of Hukawng Valley, said that some of the KIA soldiers were expert mahouts.
“Around 2015, the Kachin independence fighters had some 50-60 elephants to carry cargo items and passengers off-road and cross-forest, beyond the view of the road-bound patrols of the military,” he said. “The elephants go where the roads cannot.” Sources privy to developments in resistance camps said that young resistance leaders were also now learning to ride elephants.
In an interview to this correspondent via email, Zaw Lwin, a mahout and assistant leader of a committee of elephant handlers in the Alaungdaw Kathapa National Park (AKNP) in Sagaing Region, Myanmar’s oldest and largest national park, said that during the rainy season, he and his fellow mahouts “use elephants to transport rations for the families of mahouts and also patients from remote areas.”
Elephants aid road repair work after a deadly earthquake in Sagaing Region, Myanmar, March 29, 2025. (Photo credit: By special arrangement)
According to reports, the AKNP was closed in June 2021, a month after the elephant keepers and their families moved out of the government-provided housing in the park to join the Civil Disobedience Movement.
Another AKNP mahout, Htay Aung, added: “Besides carrying patients and supplies, we also deploy the elephants to support revolutionary forces – whenever any assistance is required.”
In Burmese custom, work elephants generally wear a wooden bell, carved of teak, each producing a slightly different note that is identifiable by the mahouts. In the monsoon-soaked landscapes, the transport elephants are now the only means of hauling essentials, their stealthy gait offering rebel fighters some advantage when moving through conflict zones.
But tusker convoys can hardly go unnoticed.
“Elephants are big animals; they cannot hide,” said Lintner. However, he said that they come with other advantages. “The Kachins told me that there is a key difference between elephants and mules when it comes to transporting goods,” he said. “Elephants eat as they go – bamboo or some vegetation along the forest trail, but mules don’t – their handlers must fetch hay for them.”
Elephant Convoys of Resistance
Pro-democracy groups in Myanmar consider the elephants a national treasure, believing that they will have an important role to play when the nation transitions to democracy. According to the NUG’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation (MONREC), 227 elephants are currently serving Myanmar’s resistance. Of these, 37 are from Alaungdaw Kathapa, while the other 190 are “surrendered elephants” that once belonged to the state-run Myanmar Timber Enterprise (MTE).
“Since the coup, we have had to keep relocating to safer areas with secure road access – for the sake of our safety, livelihood, and health. So far, we have managed to avoid getting caught in the conflict,” said Zaw Lwin.
Myanmar has the largest captive elephant population in Asia, but it’s not considered self-sustaining due to low birth rates and high mortality. According to data provided by the NUG sources, the country’s total elephant population is around 7,200. Of these, nearly 5,200 are in captivity, leaving only about 2,000 elephants in the wild, where they are threatened by poaching, habitat loss, and human-elephant conflict.
While half of Myanmar’s captive population is currently owned by the MTE, the rest belong to private owners, some of whom live in areas under the control of the military regime’s State Administration Council.
After the communist People’s Liberation Army captured 138 elephants from junta-owned logging camps in September 2024, around 3,200 elephants remain under the MTE’s control, which are used primarily for logging, the NUG’s MONREC estimated. Of this, the Forest Department manages around 200, while another 2,000 belong to the private sector, working in ecotourism parks or local industries.
Speaking to this correspondent, an NUG official said that the elephants that are now part of the resistance will be “systematically handed back to the state in the post-revolutionary period.”
“The elephant trainers and their families, and the public are in full agreement with this,” the official said. “During this period, the safety and security of both elephants and their keepers are of the highest concern.”
For Myanmar’s military government, however, elephant conservation is likely a low priority. Thailand-based conservationist Adam Oswell said that the military is too focused on survival to give the issue much attention.
“The military is in an existential crisis, now controlling only a third of the country and facing immense pressure,” Oswell said. “They lack the resources and capacity to maintain essential services, including national parks, healthcare, and even electricity. In Myanmar’s capital, people get power for only about three hours a day. With government functions badly diminished, conservation is the least of their concerns – it’s simply not something they care about.”
Troops of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) mounted on elephants patrol outside Laiza, Kachin State, Myanmar, April 1, 2012. (Photo credit: Sebastian Strangio)
The White Elephants of Monarchy
Revered in several Southeast Asian countries, Asian white elephants, with unusually pale skin, have long been thought to bring prosperity to the king and the country. Conversely, the death of a royal white elephant, known as hsinphyudaw in Burmese, can also be considered a bad omen or warning of misfortune.
The sudden death of a revered female white elephant in Naypyidaw on February 22 of this year was viewed by many as a foreboding sign, especially when a powerful earthquake struck the country just weeks later. Others, however, dismissed it as a natural calamity.
The female elephant, Baddawadi, had been ceremoniously brought from Rakhine State to Naypyidaw in 2010 under the previous military junta. No white elephants were discovered during the civilian administration of the National League for Democracy, which was ousted by the military in 2021.
In August of last year, the regime launched a counteroffensive called Operation Sin Phyu Shin or “Lord of the White Elephant,” which aimed to retake parts of northern Shan State that had fallen to the ethnic armed groups belonging to the Three Brotherhood Alliance since October 2023. Sources said such names were also used in operations by past military regimes.
While reports suggest that Operation Sin Phyu Shin has made little progress, its name implies the reign of a monarch – one that could refer to Myanmar’s military leader, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, who reportedly possesses around ten white elephants, the youngest being almost three years old. In 2018, Thailand’s King Vajiralongkorn awarded Min Aung Hlaing the title of Knight Grand Cross (First Class) of the Most Exalted Order of the White Elephant, as a symbol of close military relations between Thailand and Myanmar. Historically, Myanmar monarchs zealously sought the title “master of the white elephant,” and the number of white elephants under a ruler’s care was seen as a symbol of superiority and national prosperity.
Elephants have also served as tools of diplomacy aimed at fostering closer ties with foreign partners. In January this year, the SAC gifted six elephants – five female and one male – to Russia’s Great Moscow State Circus. Before the military government took over, in the winter of 2018, four elephants from the MTE were sent to Japan’s Sapporo Maruyama Zoo in Hokkaido, and one was transferred to Sri Lanka.
Caring for Elephants and Mahouts
Since elephants thrive in their natural habitat, the handlers and their dependents often move with them, sometimes camping deep inside the jungle. In conflict areas, this exposes them and the animals to considerable dangers. When there’s fighting going on, handling elephants becomes challenging. The sound of gunfire, the humming of drones, or any sudden noise can easily spook these giants.
In various parts of the country, resistance soldiers have helped the oozis, as the elephant handlers are known in Burmese, and their families to move from jungles to “liberated zones” for their safety, while assigning them the task of releasing the elephants into the forest for foraging and mating and then guiding them back to the camps. Each resistance group is “closely monitoring” the situation and taking necessary action to protect the “CDM elephants,” said the NUG official. (CDM refers to the Civil Disobedience Movement that was established following the 2021 coup.)
“When they have open forest access, elephants do not need humans for food supply, but only to administer additional health supplements. It is beneficial for the elephants if the handlers guide them to a good grazing ground and ensure that they return regularly to the camp,” the official said. “Burmese Oozis and mahouts have been executing this role efficiently.”
A “resistance” elephant and her calf at an undisclosed location in Myanmar. According to Burmese custom, work elephants wear a wooden bell, each producing a note identifiable by mahouts. (Photo credit: By special arrangement)
Work elephants and their mahouts hail from Sagaing Region in upper Myanmar and certain townships of Mandalay Region in central Myanmar, as well as northern Shan State and Bago Region.
“We check the elephants’ health every two or three days. Whether we release them into the forest or bring them back to the camp depends largely on the weather conditions. After each inspection, if any health issues are found, we take the necessary steps before allowing them back into the forest,” said mahout Zaw Lwin.
However, the civil war has hit Myanmar’s mahouts hard. For the past two years, Zaw Lwin said that they have been forced to ask villages for donations. There is a particularly urgent need for basics like oil, rice, salt, chili, and onions to support themselves and their families. “There has been no aid coming in from the NUG for the families of mahouts since 2023,” said Zaw Lwin.
Kaung Myat, an official from the NUG’s MONREC, said that in 2021 and 2022, the ministry made efforts to support elephants and CDM-aligned mahouts, including the provision of food, medicine, supplements, harnesses, and other gear. However, it has been difficult to keep this support going.
One NUG official said that vaccination programs had been undertaken for the CDM elephants from Alaungdaw Kathapa. Camps have been organized for this purpose by ethnic armed groups, local administrators, and CDM veterinarians in Yinmabin district of Sagaing Region, the official said.
The 138 elephants captured last year were initially relocated to People’s Liberation Army (PLA) camps in Mandalay Region and northern Shan State. More than 60 of these were later transferred from the PLA to the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), which controls a large territory in northwestern Shan State.
Challenges Ahead
Shell suggested that maintaining a semi-captive population is the best approach to sustainability. In his book “Giants of the Monsoon Forest,” he described how timber elephants in both Myanmar and India’s eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh were regularly released into surrounding forests at night – to sleep, forage, and find mates, either among other domestic elephants or elephants in wild herds passing through.
“A reduction in wild elephants in Myanmar would be bad,” he said. “It’s optimal for a local elephant population to be half wild, half work elephants (with nightly free releases into the forest). The wild elephants replenish the work elephant population with pregnancies, and the work elephants keep the local human community economically invested in the elephants’ overall wellbeing.”
However, Myanmar’s civil war has complicated efforts to conserve the country’s wild elephant population. At the beginning of the 20th century, Myanmar was home to an estimated 10,000 wild elephants, according to a study by the Nature and Wildlife Conservation Division and the Smithsonian Institution. By the 1970s, the number had dropped to about 6,000. Today, the relatively small population of wild elephants is mostly concentrated in the Bago Hills, the southwest of the Irrawaddy River Delta, Chin State, and the Arakan Mountains in Myanmar’s west.
Resistance soldiers and mahouts tending to elephants at an undisclosed location in Myanmar. Faces have been blurred to protect identities. (Photo credit: By special arrangement)
Over the years, the traditional migratory routes between eastern India and Myanmar have been interrupted by the expansion of human populations and the plundering of natural resources, leading to a decline in the wild Asian elephant population. Along the India-Myanmar border, there are continued efforts by Indian authorities to reopen the traditional migration routes in the Namdapha National Park and Tiger Reserve in Changlang district of Arunachal Pradesh. In January, for the first time in 12 years, a camera trap inside the park captured the image of an adult male elephant in the Kathan area of Namdapha.
In Myanmar, however, wild elephants remain vulnerable to poaching, mainly for ivory and skin. The animal parts are illegally traded in China, which borders Myanmar to the north and east. According to the NUG representative, poaching has somewhat declined due to the presence of ethnic armed groups within and close to elephant habitats.
At the same time, the collapse of law and order in other parts of the country has led to increased trafficking that threatens an entire range of endangered wildlife. Over the past three years, Indian security forces, including the Assam Rifles and the Mizoram forest department, have seized a significant number of exotic birds and animals in operations along the Indo-Myanmar border.
“There is a massive demand for wildlife in India, which surged since just before the COVID-19 pandemic,” Oswell said. “Amid ongoing chaos and conflict, illicit trade continues unchecked. Ports in Yangon operate with minimal scrutiny and accountability, enabling the trafficking of illegal goods, including wildlife, into China and India.”
Above all else, Myanmar’s pachyderms need an end to the civil war and a return to peace, which would allow conservation efforts and the normal rhythms of life to proceed.
“The civil war has made the future well-being of Myanmar’s elephants even more uncertain. Their habitat is in danger and there are fewer resources to care for them,” said Lintner. “The war affects everyone, and the elephants are no exception.”