Banda Aceh, Indonesia ? Rachmat has a nasty gash on his leg from walking over broken glass. Marni has a forehead laceration from bumping up against things. Their fellow workers are also nursing cuts and scrapes.

Since the Asian elephants began helping clear debris in Indonesia’s Aceh province after the Dec. 26 tsunami, they have picked up minor injuries. Officials and trainers say the wounds aren’t serious, but conservationists and animal welfare activists say the endangered elephants shouldn’t be working in the ruined city of Banda Aceh and want the practice ended.

“You are not going to get rusty nails in forests,” said Ian Redmond, a wildlife biologist and elephant conservationist with the British group Born Free Foundation. Though the animals’ health depends on the care they receive, “the potential for injuries in a disaster zone is more serious,” he said.

The criticism angers Aceh officials and elephant trainers, who say the animals receive excellent care.

“These so-called animal lovers, they come to me and say the elephants look thin, but it then turns out they have never seen an elephant before,” said Andi Basrul, who heads Aceh’s government-run conservation board overseeing the elephants.

In the immediate aftermath of the quake and tsunami disaster, 18 elephants in Aceh did the work of scarce trucks, bulldozers and other heavy machinery.

Directed by their trainers, or mahouts, they hauled away cars and rubbish to allow crews to collect dead bodies. In Thailand, they were used to reach hilly or muddy areas where vehicles couldn’t go.

These days, six elephants in Banda Aceh, the capital of Aceh province, load tens of thousands of fallen coconut trees littering the city onto trucks, which cart them away to be cut up for temporary housing.

Several elephants have been injured, but none seriously.

An Indonesian elephant loads fallen palm trees into trucks in Banda Aceh, Indonesia. Since the elephants began helping clean up the tsunami wreckage, a controversy has raged between government officials and trainers who say the elephants are well cared for, and animal conservationists who say they should not be taken out of the jungle to work.

“They are enjoying the work,” said Madi, a mahout who, like some Indonesians, goes by one name. “We can tell if they are suffering, and believe me they are not.”

But animal rights advocates say the elephants are being dragged from their natural habitat and aren’t getting proper care. “They belong in the jungle, not the city,” said Luki Wardhani, a veterinarian for Indonesia’s leading conservation group, ProFauna.

“They are not getting enough water and food, and are picking up cuts every day from glass, nails and sharp metal.”