Plight of the Asian Elephant

The past week we went from the hustle and bustle of Bangkok to the open wilderness in the mountainous jungles north of Chiang Mai. There we stayed at the Elephant Nature Park and learned of the struggles that the Asian Elephants in Thailand and Burma (Myanmar) have been through. Roughly a century ago there was around 100,000 elephants in Thailand but due mostly to habitat loss as well as other factors the number has dwindled to an estimated 2500. For centuries the Asian Elephant have been living and working alongside the Thai people. Up until 1988 they were used primarily in the logging industry, ironically destroying their homes in the process. Although logging is still going on in Burma, once the industry was banned in Thailand the domesticated elephants were soon out of work This caused a shift in the role of the elephants to cater to the tourism industry in what you see today as trekking, painting, and other forms of entertainment. And through this 'domestication' process in which the elephants learn their tricks is what the Elephant Nature Park is about, providing a refuge to sick and abused elephants where they can spend the rest of their lives in a more natural setting.

The domestication of an elephant is a sad and abusive story which hardly anyone (western or Thai) know about. Much like how many westerners don't know how horses are broken. But it is the process that has been used for centuries in order for elephants to be submissive to people. At a very young age, usually within the first 5 years, the elephant is taken from its mother and forced into a tortuous 2 to 3 week process where it is forced into a wooden pen barely big enough to fit the elephant. There it is stabbed, poked, and hit with sticks, hooks, knives, etc until it learns how to perform various commands. The elephant is kept there with little food or sleep and constant abuse until its will and spirits are broken. I believe that less than half of the elephants make it through this training and there have been cases of elephant suicide where they stand on their own trunk until they die.

The elephant nature park is a radical new approach to domesticating and training elephants. The elephants do not paint, do not carry tourists, and the only tricks performed are not done through abuse but rather they are given treats when they do something good. This hopefully will show other elephant parks and trekking camps that the elephants can still be used without having to put them through hell. The park was started by an elephant lover named Lek (shown to the right) back in the mid 90's. There are so many stories both good and bad that Lek and the park have been through. You can read more about it at www.elephantnaturefoundation.org or you can just do a search on Lek and the Elephant Nature Park. But the park is run mostly by foreign donations and hoards of volunteers such as us. My next entry will tell you about my time at the park.