The Thai Elephant Problem
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Elephants are the national symbol of Thailand, revered in Buddhism, highly intelligent, and attract many tourists. When I first came to Thailand, my thinking was that these huge creatures love to hang around humans just like a big cuddly dog. They love to be ridden and can’t wait to serve mankind. The proof was that elephants are so gentle, so obedient, and so darn cute. How wrong I was. Wrong in most aspects of my thinking. I came to learn that elephants in the wild can be ferocious. Elephants are not only one of the largest and most intelligent animals, they are also one of the toughest. No other creature in the animal kingdom will take on an elephant as their first choice. Elephants are also social creatures and the females with their young stay together in family or extended family groups. They speak to each other and can communicate over large distances. When a member of the family is in danger, if possible, the elephants will form a circle with the young in the middle and all will fight to protect each other and the young. When separated from the group a mother will fight to the death to protect her young. If a young elephant is in danger not only will the mother fight to the death to protect the youngster, so will the young elephant’s aunts, and others in the extended family.
So how then do elephants come to be “tame“ so they can be used to beg for food on the streets, perform tricks, be ridden by tourists and all the things we see elephants do in Thailand? That my friends is a sad, sad story. Only young elephants can be “trained“, so the baby elephants, some still nursing, are taken from the wild. How is this accomplished since the mother and baby are inseparable and the mother will fight to the death to protect her baby? Simple, kill the mother and any aunts that are fighting to protect the youngster. So the sad but simple fact is, that anytime you see a young elephant on the street without it’s mother (as all street elephants are) it’s mother and possibly it’s aunts have been killed by poachers. There is always one and up to three or more elephants that die when one baby is captured. It is estimated that two thirds of all young elephants are illegally smuggled into Thailand from Burma (Myanmar). Why does this atrocity happen? That is also an easy answer. A baby elephant can be sold for a million baht or more, depending on it’s training. Documents can easily be altered, bribes paid, it is all too easy. It is big business my friends, very big business. It’s all about money. Your money.
As sad as the capture is, that is only the beginning of the pain for a baby elephant. The elephant must now be trained. The “training” of a baby elephant is done in most cases by a traditional method called the “crush“. “Crush” is a good description as the young elephant, it is believed, must have it’s spirit broken to become docile, learn commends and to accept being ridden by humans.
Elephants are meant to be wild. Just like the movie “Born Free” pointed out, wild animals should be in the wild. Unlike the lion in that movie however, Thai elephants cannot be released back into the wild. There is not enough forest land to support all of the domestic elephants in Thailand, and the continuing slash and burn of Thai forests to make way for agriculture is alarming. If elephants were not used in tourism it would lead to many elephant deaths, as the elephants would have no where to go, and no tourist money to take care of them. So, as I said above, the issue is complicated. Before I went on this trip I was against the use of any elephants in tourism. But I have changed my mind. My idealism changed into reality. We have “domestic” elephants. We can’t just let them go or they would become a nuisance, harmful to humans and themselves and either be killed or die. So what do we do? First, wean ourselves off the need for capturing elephants from the wild, but in the mean time find a way to enjoy elephants without abusing them, such as elephant preserves or good elephant camps. Then, take elephants off the streets. Next, stop the abusive “crush” as a training method, and support those who train elephants in a humane manner.