On Friday the 23rd of February, we visited Elephant Nature Park in Chiangmai Thailand. We learned lots about elephant tourism, and just elephants in general.
This is an adoptive family at the sanctuary. They have all been rescued from different places, but now have formed a family where they communally care for their blind and baby family members.
Elephants by nature are very sweet and gentle animals with the exception of a few aggressive males, but the intense training and abuse they must go through in order to perform in any way shape or form traumitizes them so that they are essentially crazy. We learned from our friend that elephant tourism is very complicated. Elephants in the wild are captured and taken to circuses and elephant trekking companies, but first they must go through “The Crush” or domestication. For about seven days they are tied up, starved and beaten to such extent that they are terrified of humans, and easier to train. Since they know that they will be hit if they don’t do what they are told, they are scared into painting, performing, or learning how to be ridden.
Happy elephant. Lots of room to roam and loving to rehabilitate her leg injury.
Sanctuaries like Elephant Nature Park will buy them out of this situation and put them into a free habitat without being chained up or any type of restraints, just acting like a normal elephants. But, since these sanctuaries are paying big money for these elephants, they’re accidentally creating a market for elephant buying. People will smuggle elephants over the border from the Burmese wilderness, and sell them to the sanctuaries telling them if they don’t buy the elephant they’ll sell it to a circus. But if the elephants stay in the wild, they are captured by trainers and the males are poached for their tusks. Also in Burma using elephants for logging isn’t illegal, so that just causes a whole new problem. Me and my family decided that they best thing we can do is support the sanctuaries, because at least these elephants are living in Paradise. And we can spread the word to discourage elephant tourism.
You can look up Elephant Nature Park, and there’s a good video that shows you the truth behind Elephant tourism. And, if you ever come to Thailand, DON’T RIDE THE ELEPHANTS
This is not normal. These elephants were ridden by tourists in Ayuthaya, central Thailand. Just common intuition tells you that they’re not happy in costume and walking down the highway.
