If you’ve ever considered visiting Thailand, you’ve probably thought about spending some time with their gorgeous elephants. Don’t make the mistake of picturing yourself riding one though! The animals are hugely mistreated.
Seeing an elephant up close and personal is on many people’s bucket lists! There are definitely ways to do this ethically in Thailand, but it’s important to know how to avoid the terrible tourist traps and the cruel camps.
In this post, I’ll explain what elephant tourism is, why it’s bad and how you can actually spend time with elephants in a positive way!
What is Elephant Tourism?
Thailand’s national animal is the elephant, which unfortunately seems to give the tourism industry the audacity to abuse them in order to make money. Elephants are being ridden by naive visitors sucked into the exciting idea. People happily pose for photos sat on one without knowing the damage they are causing.
Some elephants are forced to work in the illegal logging trade for their whole lives, lifting heavy trees with their trunks and working for long hours every day. The rest are thrown into the elephant tourism industry where they might be forced to learn tricks such as painting a picture or begging on the street for food. Ever seen an elephant on the streets?
That’s not a healthy, safe or happy elephant.
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Why Is It Bad?
In reality, having passengers on their backs does a lot of damage, but that’s not the worst of it. Elephant owners are taking baby elephants from their mothers, which causes a lot of stress for both of them. Then they’re put through a horrific process called phajaan.
This is essentially the ‘breaking of the spirit’ and the animal is beaten, starved and exhausted. This is carried on until they have no will to live anymore.
At this point, the mahout (elephant trainer) is happy enough that the elephant is sufficiently broken and will do anything they want at the hands of their whips. They’re petrified of humans and obey every command, however unnatural or painful.
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Why Do People Take Part?
Most people I know who have ridden an elephant were unaware of the abuse they go through and regret taking part in it. People research going to Thailand and are fed lots of information about riding elephants.
Let’s face it, we’ve all wanted to ride a huge exotic animal and show everybody back home the pictures. Fortunately, many people are trying to spread the truth and how to better spend your time with the elephants.
We also tend to applaud animals for showing human-like traits. So if an elephant is playing football then people are going to want to watch. People forget that no elephant in the history of elephants has EVER played football in the wild because football is boring.
Okay no, it’s because they’re animals! They have instincts to find food, mate and look after their herd.
How Can We Stop It?
There are more and more people realising the negative impact elephant tourism has on the animals. This means that less and less tourists will be fooled into thinking visiting an elephant (or in fact any animal) at a circus is a fun way to spend an afternoon.
The best thing we can all do is share the information and knowledge we have already. I’ve already spoken to a few people about it who didn’t know; it really can make a difference.
Hopefully, in time the bad mahouts will realise everyone is getting wise to their ways and there won’t be any money in elephant tourism anymore.
Luckily, there are some mahouts and elephant owners who do know that parading their elephants around for tourists is bad! There are some amazing sanctuaries in Thailand, especially Chiang Mai, who spend all their time, money and effort making the elephants’ lives better, whilst still educating tourists which is the perfect way to do it.
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But you really want to spend time with elephants, right?
Luckily, there ARE alternatives to riding elephants or seeing one in a circus! Across Asia, there are a few rescue centres that devote their time finding abused elephants and rehabilitating them. You can usually spend a day or two there and touch, feed or even wash the elephants in a safe and guided way.
Read our full review of the best ethical elephant sanctuaries in Chiang Mai. We were able to support the rescue of these beautiful creatures and we got those ‘Elph-ies’ we’ve always craved! Don’t forget to watch the 4-part YouTube series as well, showing the best places to support happy elephants!
I hate to preach but seeing some of the rescued elephants with terrible injuries in real life really made me think about how we treat animals for our own pleasure. Sure, I still eat meat and I drink milk.
BUT there are small steps to take to start protecting the animals we claim to love, and sharing what I have seen in Thailand seems like a good way to start! I hope that you can also pass it on so that eventually elephants will become respected and honoured again, and not treated like they have no right to live naturally and peacefully as they want to.
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Comments
Great article, I think you just gotta protect the elephant and let them be. But the problem is they want the money!!
Exactly, I think eventually they will introduce animal rights laws into Thailand but until then we should all just be more aware I guess.
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Love that you are sharing. So many of these elephant farms are nightmares for the elephants!
We didn’t know how bad they were until we did research ourselves. Hopefully we can pursuade just one person to not endorse any negative experiences for the elephants.