Here I am, trying to get the perfect elephant selfie.
I get scared.
I’m Dena, and I went to Thailand
to explore how travel trends impact local communities.
An important disclaimer - I traveled there
before coronavirus became a global pandemic.
Stay tuned ‘til the end.
I’ll explain how COVID-19
has changed the situation on the ground there.
Anyway, in Thailand,
a major draw for visitors has been elephant tourism.
You’ve probably seen it all over your feed.
But when you scroll down to the comments,
you see callout culture at its finest.
The debate over whether elephant tourism is cruel
feels louder now than ever.
After pressure from PETA,
Tripadvisor decided to stop selling tickets to some elephant attractions.
Even Instagram gives you a warning when you search #elephantride.
So travel vloggers and influencers are
preaching “ethical” ways to interact with elephants,
and many say no riding whatsoever.
Riding elephants is not the best way to interact with elephants.
Don’t support elephant riding.
But are they right?
I’m here to take the debate offline and outside the Western echo chamber
by getting answers from the people
you probably haven’t heard from:
local Thais.
How did elephant tourism get so big here?
And how is the West changing the industry?
No, I don't want the elephant to kiss me.
The elephant wants to kiss me?
I hate you guys.
It was like a suction!
OK, that felt weird.
But it’s what a lot of tourists do here.
Elephants have long occupied a special and rather emotional place in our hearts.
The number of visitors to Thailand more than doubled in the last decade.
And these Asian elephants, which by the way are endangered,
have been a huge attraction.
For a fee, tourists can bathe them,
dust them off with palm fronds,
get a hug
and even watch them perform.
Oh my God.
These elephants are straight-up painting.
I feel weird.
More on that later.
My team and I decided to check out two different elephant attractions.
This first one lets tourists get up close and take as many photos as they want.
My cousin came a couple years ago and, like, got the sickest one.
You see the photo, and you’re like, that’s the place I have to go
'cuz I need that photo.
The staff here says the baby elephants actually respond to the word “selfie.”
Selfie! Selfie!
Maybe not.
This is Pat.
He’s part of a group of scientists and experts trying to improve the welfare
of captive elephants in the region.
Pat runs this farm and is frustrated with the backlash against elephant tourism.
Do you think that a lot of this debate
comes down to Westerners not trusting Thais,
who've been living with these animals for hundreds and hundreds of years?
OK, but why are there so many elephants in tourism?
Pat told me elephants have historically played a huge role in Thai society.
They hold religious importance.
They were used to fight in wars, for transportation,
and, most notably, were made to work in the logging industry hauling teak wood.
But by the 1980s, the country’s forests were rapidly decreasing,
and, in 1989, the government banned logging.
Suddenly, elephants and the families that cared for them
were left without a job,
and, thanks to deforestation, had nowhere to go.
Some owners had no choice but to take their elephants to the city
to perform for money.
But there, the elephants risked being electrocuted by wires,
hit by cars and having deadly encounters
with humans or other elephants.
So you're saying, like, tourism is the solution?
But what kind of tourism, exactly?
Pat says the word “sanctuary,”
which you might know as the ethical option, is a myth.
That’s 'cuz to be a true sanctuary,
all the elephants would have to roam free without any human interaction,
which Pat says is unrealistic.
Branding.
And to get this positive image,
some camps now ban riding altogether and, sometimes, even touching.
But according to a new study, the lack of human contact in
observation-only camps could ultimately be bad for an elephant’s health.
I got myself wet!
So I see your visitors here riding the elephants,
but everything I've heard from folks in the U.S is that riding is bad,
and even Instagram warns against it.
Is it bad?
What many animal rights activists claim, though,
is that elephants have to be abused
in order to be this comfortable around people.
But Pat and multiple Thai and Western experts we spoke to said that’s not true.
So we’re finally gonna get to talk to a mahout,
and he’s up there with his elephant right now.
Mahouts are elephant caregivers,
and they’re traditionally bonded to one elephant at a time.
I’m Dena.
Daree? Nice to meet you. And this is?
Daree has taken care of elephants since he was 12.
He’s Karen, an ethnic minority originally from Myanmar,
known for their elephant-handling skills.
I’d love to hear about your relationship with Benko.
Can you show me how you get on her?
Oh my God!
How much have you heard
about the controversy in the West regarding riding elephants?
Benko seems pretty loved.
But what about other elephants in the industry?
Remember this?
These shows have always been popular
across Thailand,
but they raise concerns about the elephants’ well-being,
including among some Thais.
And I get it.
So I met up with Dr. Im.
She’s a vet who studies the health of elephants in northern Thailand.
- Where?
Oh, there they are! OK, yeah.
- What does it mean if there is a tear?
- Do they cry when they’re sad, like we do?
They don’t cry?
- This little guy, like he’s so talented.
He can paint. He can kick a ball.
He's athletic. But I don't know how I feel
about watching him perform in a show like that.
Is that OK?
So from what you see
in this clinic working with these elephants, they're fine?
Dr. Im recommends camps use metal riding saddles,
rather than heavier wooden ones.
What most surprised me was her finding that elephants
in observation-only camps have higher stress hormone levels
than the elephants that participate in shows or riding.
She says that’s likely due to the lack of exercise and less time spent
with their mahouts.
Her finding really seems to highlight just how dependent
captive elephants in Thailand have become on humans.
But what about bullhooks,
the sharp tools mahouts have used for generations?
Well, Dr. Im found those sometimes do leave wounds.
Dr. Im says pressure from the West has led to improvements in elephant welfare.
But ultimately, she says science and local research should lead
how Thailand regulates its camps.
I came to Thailand wondering why so many elephants
work in the tourism industry,
and I found out it’s essentially because they have nowhere else to go.
And for people like Pat, it’s important to use tourism
for conservation, to allow these endangered elephants to breed and thrive.
What would happen if elephant tourism went away?
Not everything I saw sat well with me.
At the end of the day, these are businesses, and I only saw a few of them.
Still, there’s something about elephants that
makes us want to post them all over our feed.
But, we should be careful not to make assumptions or
impose our views without considering the complicated world they live in.
Hey, everyone.
Obviously, a lot has changed in the weeks since we filmed this video.
As you know, coronavirus is now a full-blown pandemic,
and that’s why I’m filming this update at home while sheltering in place.
And basically, the entire elephant tourism industry that you just saw in this video
has come to a screeching halt.
There are virtually no tourists and the camps are closed.
And, so far, there’s no evidence to suggest that elephants can contract coronavirus,
but I still wanted to know how the pandemic is affecting their welfare,
and the welfare of the people taking care of them.
So I reached out to the folks that we met while in Thailand,
and here are the videos they sent back to me.
Hey, guys. Thanks for watching, and make sure you
also check out our next episode filmed in Thailand
all about “authentic” tourism.
We’re gonna post the whole series in our Checked In playlist.
Since I know many of you are at home,
you can also watch more of my reporting here on YouTube
and also look out for more of AJ+’s coronavirus coverage.