Thai Elephants Are Being Killed For Tourist Dollars

[cowslip]

THere are vitally no animal cruelty laws in Thailand and still a vast ignorance of wildlife and conservation - couple this with an indelibly corrupt workforce and management and you have a recipe for repeated incidents like this. They have been talked about on this web site before - I think it is actually quite surprising that some posters seem either unaware of or surprised by this situation.

[Bakeman]

MONEY

[Johpa]

If each place keepingy elephants had the elephants DNA tested and the plane regularly inspected the approved by the nesasery government body, it reduce these numbers very rapidly followed by the death penalty for people buying, selling and taking bribes in such ventures.

For what it is worth, there is suppose to be ownership documents for all non-wild elephants. The elephant that we use to own had such a document and that document was transferred to the the new owner when we sold the elephant several years ago.

There are two intermingled narratives here. Make no mistake, they aren't shoooting 10 year old elephants for the ivory, fully adult males perhaps, but not youngsters. That is why fully developed tuskers are rarely left out in the forests unattended. The relatively recent killing of wild elephants for meat is to feed the increased culinary demands from the now more commonly seen wealthy Chinese tourists from the PRC to their southern most monthorn. But of course criticism of the Chinese in Thailand rates right up there with lese majeste.

And then there is the issue of the elephant camps for the trained "domesticated" elephants who can no longer find employment in logging. And yes, unemployed elephants often go hungry. One could take all the elephants in all the camps up north and transport them to the few uninahabiated reserve areas, but then they are even more susceptible to poaching and eventually, given the bounded nature of such reserve areas, would be subject to culling. There are no perfect solutions here, but clearly the camps are one part of the less than perfect solutions available.

it's not high on locals lists to go to such places.

What?!? Last time I was at the Mae Sa elephant camp there were loads of Thais visiting. The elephant camps are very popular destinations for Thais.

[cowslip]

<p>

If each place keepingy elephants had the elephants DNA tested and the plane regularly inspected the approved by the nesasery government body, it reduce these numbers very rapidly followed by the death penalty for people buying, selling and taking bribes in such ventures.

For what it is worth, there is suppose to be ownership documents for all non-wild elephants. The elephant that we use to own had such a document and that document was transferred to the the new owner when we sold the elephant several years ago. There are two intermingled narratives here. Make no mistake, they aren't shoooting 10 year old elephants for the ivory, fully adult males perhaps, but not youngsters. That is why fully developed tuskers are rarely left out in the forests unattended. The relatively recent killing of wild elephants for meat is to feed the increased culinary demands from the now more commonly seen wealthy Chinese tourists from the PRC to their southern most monthorn. But of course criticism of the Chinese in Thailand rates right up there with lese majeste. And then there is the issue of the elephant camps for the trained "domesticated" elephants who can no longer find employment in logging. And yes, unemployed elephants often go hungry. One could take all the elephants in all the camps up north and transport them to the few uninahabiated reserve areas, but then they are even more susceptible to poaching and eventually, given the bounded nature of such reserve areas, would be subject to culling. There are no perfect solutions here, but clearly the camps are one part of the less than perfect solutions available.

it's not high on locals lists to go to such places.

What?!? Last time I was at the Mae Sa elephant camp there were loads of Thais visiting. The elephant camps are very popular destinations for Thais.

</p>

<p> </p>

<p> </p>

<p>...and you point being??</p>

<p> </p>

<div id="myEventWatcherDiv" style="display:none;"> </div>

[KhaoTan]

Does anyone have experience with the Elephant Mahout Project, located South of Pattaya? I have a relative who wants to work with the elephants and she is thinking about booking with them, but I want to be very careful not to support a camp which uses poached elephants or is inhumane. Any feedback/comments about this place would be appreciated!

Their website says they are non-profit, and it all looks legit, but I have not been able to find anyone who has experienced participating in this particular camp.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

[harada]

Yep...them dam foreigners again!

Here is an idea to think about: next time, some foreign tourist demands something illegal or immoral...how about saying "NO!"?

Sounds like the 50th thing you will not heard said in thailand.