On this episode, I want to bring awareness to why elephant riding is bad.
This video isn’t intended to shame anyone who has been elephant riding but to educate
why this activity shouldn’t be supported going forward.
There is a way to interact up close with elephants without bringing harm to them which we’ll
get to.
Elephants have been used for decades in the logging industry, in novelty shows and at
the circus.
Today while still apart of some circus acts most elephant encounters at parks where tourists
ride them.
To be able to ride an elephant is a long journey that starts with the baby elephant.
Babies are captured in the wild, taken from their mothers, which isn’t legal to do but
the elephant's market value is so high shady dealers risk the consequences for the opportunity
of profits.
Stealing a baby elephant isn’t an easy task, usually, the mother usually needs to be killed
to able to take the baby.
The baby elephant is taken to a holding facility for so-called “training”.
This training is just the act of a human striking an elephant with a bullhook or other tools
while they are tied up.
The baby will be chained to a stake and after a long fight to be free the baby elephant's
spirit will be broken at which point they obey human commands.
This process of breaking their spirit gives the elephant PTSD or post-traumatic stress
disorder which you can see on display here in the Phuket zoo.
This is called the elephant sway, it’s a sure sign an elephant is depressed and it’s
their only way of getting their energy out.
In the wild elephants live in matriarchal herds that roam, graze, bathe and play together.
They’ll travel vast distances every day but in captivity, they are bound by a single
chain unable to move more than a handful of feet.
These long days often standing on concrete damages their legs leading to arthritis, foot
and back problems and shortening their lifespan by decades.
A wild elephant can live up to 70 years old where an enslaved one under human control
will reach age 40 if they are lucky.
These poor animals once they mature to adulthood will go to one of two places, a zoo like the
disastrous Phuket zoo which I have an entire video on, where they’ll spend their lives
doing tricks for tips a couple of hours a day than remain chained up for the rest of
their life or off to an elephant riding facility.
Forced to lug around hundreds of pounds of tourists daily, in the wild an elephant will
spend up to 18 hours a day eating.
Since elephants at these riding facilities are busy continually carrying humans for 8
hours at a time this cuts into their feeding schedule.
They are fed a diet to keep them alive but isn’t nutritionally adequate.
These riding tours have popped up all over the place even up the side of the mountain
on an atv tour, the elephants don’t even flinch at the sound of the atvs they are so
used to them by now which just doesn’t seem right.
One of the more disgusting sights is when a baby elephant is put on display to hug or
handshake with their trunk then go around asking for money in return.
This same behavior was taught to this critically endangered Sumatran orangutan at the Phuket
zoo which I’m proud to say was set free from the zoo in the middle of the night and
was released back into the wild.
Between 2010 and 2016 17 people have perished due to elephants in captivity with 21 additional
serious injuries reported.
These numbers don’t account for numerous elephant keeper incidents that go unreported.
The reason for these attacks is the same as you’d see with tigers going off-script during
a circus show.
Their natural instinct finally overcomes their shattered will which usually ends up in a
rampaging angry elephant.
These elephants are sometimes punished and brought back into line or if they refuse to
be tamed they may be sold to an animal sanctuary.
This is the part where we can feel good there is something being done.
Elephants in their older years, if they are lucky... will end up at a sanctuary where
they can once again join a herd and act like a normal elephant.
Some of the elephants in these sanctuaries come from the logging industry.
They play and graze and will interact with humans in the proper way.
Feeding bananas out of the hand, petting their soft skin and even walk through the jungle
among the elephants.
An elephant consumes 800 lbs or 362 kg or food a day which works out to be around $80
a day to support one.
If you want to support an elephant sacturary there is a full list of ethical sanctuaries
per country in the description below.
Something to note there are facilities that’ll label themselves as sanctuary or rescue place
but still keep the elephants chained and force them to do tricks which is not actually a
sanctuary.
With enough awareness, we can shut down or convert all the riding facilities into ethical
sanctuaries where the beauty of the elephant can be enjoyed, without hurting them.