I used to see a fair number of elephants in Bangkok, but I’ve not seen any for a while. Yes, it’s illegal to bring them into the city to beg, but many times the owners are left with no option. The government banned logging but then wouldn’t provide support even though elephants are considered a national treasure. Except for maybe Malaysia, the logging concesions in neighboring countries – at least in the areas closest to the border – are held by Thais, so they hire Thais to take their elephants across the border. There are still many areas that are not accessible to machinery. And in the illegal trade that still occurs in Thailand, you want to get far back away from roads to avoid detection.
One Einstein in the city government one time famously suggested implanting microchips under elephants’ skins as a means of tracking them across the city. Uh huh. Personally, I don’t think you need a microchip to track an elephant across Bangkok. The idea died a quiet death. But whenever the police decide to crack down, they’ll round up the elephants, charge the mahouts/owners a fine and deport the lot to upcountry, I think usually to Ayutthaya province, where there’s some sort of royal elephant kraal.
But again, I’ve not seen any elephants in the city for a long time, maybe a couple of years. Which is good. Bangkok’s environment is barely tolerable for humans. They would take them around and charge tourists less than a buck to feed the elephants a small bag of something. Usually bananas, but sometimes it was only cucumbers, because those are cheaper, but I always considered offering cucumbers a sign that they didn’t really care about the beast. I never partook and always commented to the mahouts that they should not be in the city. One bar owner in Soi Cowboy said one afternoon, a mahout was passing by his bar with an elephant, and he (the owner) offered to bring out a hose to let the elephant take a drink. The mahout refused unless the bar owner paid for the privillege! So he did, and he said that elephant drank for a long, long time. This is a harsh environment for the beasts.
I’ve heard 80% of the forest has gone, but I’m always suspicious when I hear 80% for anything. The 80-20 dichotomy seems a little too commonly thrown around.
I agree with a lot of that (although I don’t know anything about circuses per se). Unfortunately, there have been bad instances of elephant abuse in this country. But many mahouts do care about their beasts. While I don’t agree with the use of the elephant goad, that big hook, I’m not sure how much worse it is than a horse’s riding crop. And an elephant engaged in trekking – that is, taking people for rides through the country – is not necessarily being abused. I know a place in Pai district of Mae Hong Son province up North that keeps elephants for this purpose, and the lady who runs it now is the third or fourth generation of her family. She grew up playing with the beasts; some of them were children at the same time she was. They roam free at night but stick close to the camp because that’s where the food is. The photo in my user info is with one of the elephants, name of Phanom. For that particular one, her mahout took her there from the other side of the country. She’s a little skittish around traffic, having been run into by a car back in the day, and the Pai environment seems to suit her better.
I did wonder how it came to pass that the elephants were put out of a job (so to speak) and the government didn’t do anything about the hardship that would create for them and for their mahouts and owners. I don’t know how practical it would have been for the government to buy the elephants or even arrange partnerships, but something should have been done.
The idea has been suggested more than once. But things move slowly over here, particularly if the authorities can’t see how they can pocket any money from the idea.
I don’t know very much about horses. My understanding - again, from conversations with people and not studies - is that elephants have strong neck muscles but their spines are not able to support much weight. I’ve been told that the back of an Asian elephant can support 200 or 300 pounds of weight, and considering that in a lot of situations you’ll have two riders plus equipment (‘trekking seats’ are popular in Thailand), I think that limit is easily exceeded. So over the life of an elephant I think that can do considerable harm, and there’s the question of how the elephant that’s giving the rides has been trained and is being treated. That’s why I made that comparison. It seems like a misguided fundraiser because they may be harming an elephant to raise money for an elephant sanctuary.
I don’t know if there are similar weight limits for horses. Horses have also been domesticated and bred to enhance their ability to do things like carry people; elephants haven’t, although they’ve been used in war and other areas.
In terms of being bred for suitability around people and for other characteristics, my understanding is that they haven’t been and that there’s no particular difference between elephants in captivity and wild ones. They’re just trained. Between the fact that they have very long gestation periods, don’t mature quickly, and live a long time, and don’t mature quickly, and that the males are crazy when they’re in musth, I can believe it.
I’m sure there are people who train and keep elephants humanely, but I suspect that there are a lot who rely on ‘traditional’ methods of animal handling.
Things I would suggest to ensure compliance. Teach them learned helplessness. Start when the elephant is very young. Use pain to gain compliance. Do not allow them any escape from the pain. Heavy chains are useful. Continue to use whatever tool is necessary to inflict pain throughout the animal’s life.
Keep them in sub-optimal conditions. Stressful living conditions, lack of sleep, long journeys without adequate food, water or rest. Feed them with inadequate or inappropriate food, so they’re always malnourished, or perhaps just a little malnourished for a very long time. Ensure their housing is not comfortable so they never really rest or relax.
How much fight do you have in you when you’re sick, tired and hungry?
Every so often circus elephants rampage. You gotta wonder what pushes them to that.
The sanctuary in Hohenwald Tennessee let a dying elephant lie on the ground for days. If an elephant cannot stand, its internal organs are crushed and it begins an agonizing death. In contrast, Willie, the star of the Riddle Sanctuary in Arkansas, was euthanized in a matter of hours when he went down. It makes good press for the PETA leaning folks to have the other elephants see her off to the Rainbow Bridge, but she was in agony for far too long there on the ground.
The story was all over their website some years ago. I can’t find a cite now.
And I’m pretty sure Tarra stepped on Bella, just as Winkie stomped on her caretaker Joanna Burke.
Perhaps so. If they were indeed inseparable, I would think the elephant could kill a bunch of coyotes threatening her friend. Perhaps the dog went off by herself, as dogs will do.
You’re talking about elephants whose ancestors have been domesticated by humans for thousands of years. They were never selectively bred?!