Produced & Hosted by Debbie Dahmer aka "Mama Bear"
Guest: Nikki Sharp, Executive Director of Wildlife SOS (USA)
Topics: Discuss elephant tourism, the welfare concerns behind elephant rides and direct-contact attractions, and how travelers can make more ethical wildlife tourism choices.
A few moments of fun on an elephant's back for a tourist can mean a lifetime of abuse for the elephant.
Few people realize that the captive elephant giving rides to tourists were wild elephants not so long ago. Elephants are wild animals with wild instincts and belong in the deep jungles. Then how is it they are found giving rides to tourists in Asia?
It all starts when the baby elephant is illegally trapped and separated from its natal herd. This is followed by a harsh training procedure called “phajaan” that uses pain and fear to break the spirit of the wild pachyderm. Severe confinement and isolation while being restrained with tight ropes and subjected to beating, prodding with bull hooks and spears, starvation and constant psychological abuse eventually makes the elephant a reliable tourist ride. Once this inhumane process is completed, what one has is one less elephant in the wild and one more elephant with a destiny of torture slated for it.
Sitting on the back of an elephant may be on a tourist's bucket list for a royal experience, however the veil behind this seemingly harmless experience conceals a very dark secret, a secret that elephant owners and their riders will hide from the naïve tourists. The only way to train an elephant to perform tourist rides, tricks in circuses, weddings or other public functions and processions is through keeping the elephant in constant pain, fear. There is sadly no other way!
Moreover, it is not safe for tourists to ride elephants. Elephants are wild animals, and despite years of breaking their spirits, they are very much susceptible to succumbing to sudden trigger reactions like fear, stress and anger. Very often in a bid to escape their torturous lives, these elephants run amok or retaliate – putting at risk the lives of tourists and bystanders as well as the persons riding them.
Wildlife SOS Website https://news.wildlifesos.org/the-dark-side-of-elephant-tourism/
Wildlife SOS FB Page https://www.facebook.com/wildlifesosindia
Wildlife SOS YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@WildlifeSOS
TAKE ACTION- SIGN PETITIONS! https://wildlifesos.org/petitions/
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