Combined fates for captive elephants despatched again to villages amid Thai tourism collapse

• When tourism collapsed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2,700 trapped elephants used for tourism in Thailand faced a crisis.
• Many elephants and their keepers migrated back to their owners’ home villages, where it was hoped they could forage naturally. Others remained in camps, often in chains and with fewer staff to look after them.
• The welfare of the elephants in the villages depends heavily on the amount of intact forest available to them. However, experts say that monitoring welfare is difficult.
• Activists are calling on the Thai government and tourism industry to make systemic changes to improve conditions and reduce the number of elephants used for tourism.

A massive migration began in March 2020 when an international travel ban to contain COVID-19 suddenly brought the Thai tourism industry to a standstill. Elephant camps that more than benefit 2,700 captured elephants In controversial trekking, swimming and riding tours, the double blow was wiped out by a lack of tourist income and inexorable gigantic food bills. Dozens of camps were closed and elephants and workers laid off by the thousands.

Many of these elephants have been leased to owners who live in remote rural areas where the tradition of elephant keeping goes back generations. Faced with an uncertain future and impending food shortages in tourist centers, hundreds of elephants and their keepers migrated back to their home villages, where cash-strapped owners hoped the elephants could naturally hunt in the forest until tourism returned.

“People thought [the COVID-19 crisis] would take a few months, but now it’s a year, ”says Saengduean” Lek “Chailert, founder of Save Elephant Foundation, a non-profit organization based in Chiang Mai Province that rescues and rehabilitates animals from across the country. Like many, she says she is confident that the return of the elephants home will mark the beginning of a meaningful change in her working life.

Elephants and their zookeepers will migrate home through the dry forest in Mae Chaem District, Chiang Mai Province, in May 2020. Courtesy of the Save Elephant Foundation.

Back in chains

Last year Lek accompanied a group on the arduous journey home to their Karen villages in northwestern Thailand. Their five-day journey of more than 100 kilometers took them over slopes charred by seasonal fires and through forests where they slept at night. Upon arrival, the elephants and their keepers were given a warm welcome; The villagers had prepared fruit for the animals and sang songs to celebrate.

The proliferation of so many elephants poses new challenges for monitoring elephant welfare. “It was pretty easy to document the conditions in camps because they were right in front of us,” says Jan Schmidt-Burbach of World Animal Protection, an organization that has been protecting elephants in Thailand for more than a decade. “Now we have difficulty understanding the conditions the elephants are exposed to. However, so far we have not found any evidence of great suffering in their new locations. “

Hunger was the top concern when the pandemic lockdown first hit the elephant tourism industry. Although cases of malnutrition and deterioration due to poor quality feed have been documented, widespread starvation has not occurred. This is partly because communities come together to make sure the elephants are fed.

Elephant organizations have teamed up with farmers to ensure a steady supply of food and coordinate distribution. The Save Elephant Foundation, which receives daily requests for help, food and medical care, launched a food bank last May where it leases land from farmers whose markets have shrunk during the pandemic. To date, the initiative has supported 260 camps feeding nearly 2,000 elephants across the country.

The Save Elephant Foundation’s food bank is up and running. Image courtesy of the Save Elephant Foundation.

Speaking to Mongabay on a video call in March 2021, Lek enthusiastically presented piles of sugar cane, pumpkin, corn and watermelon awaiting distribution to more than 560 elephants in Chiang Mai Province in honor of Thailand’s National Elephant Day, which takes place on Aug. March takes place.

Despite their initial excitement and ingenuity in feeding the returned elephants, many villagers in the area struggle to find enough space for them in the long term. “Your reality is terrible,” says Lek.

In the decades since elephants were last kept in some of these remote villages, teak and bamboo forest swaths have been cleared for rice fields and corn fields. Often there is simply not enough accessible forest for elephants to roam freely and naturally eat. There is also an increased risk of conflict between hungry elephants and farmers. In the worst case, “they are back in chains,” says Lek. “Your life is no better than in the camps.”

When more elephants live near farmland, accidents can happen. The Save Elephant Foundation recently responded to a request for help from a village where seven elephants, including a mother and a baby, had eaten a chemical insecticide used to treat plants. This incident is part of a rising trend in elephant poisoning from agrochemicals, according to the elephant hospital at the Thai Elephant Conservation Center in Lampang, where the elephants are now recovering.

However, in villages where intact forest is within reach, elephants have the opportunity to connect with their natural environment. “Some remote Karen communities on the hillside on the border between Thailand and Myanmar have practices where they have the elephants in the nearby forests and give them the freedom to graze and search,” says Schmidt-Burbach.

The Save Elephant Foundation works with other non-profit organizations including Trunks Up and Gentle giantsto maximize the chances of elephants roaming free in forests and to help owners make room for their elephants so they cannot live tied up. So far, they have helped owners of 218 elephants generate income and care for their elephants near the forest so that they do not have to return to the tourism industry after the pandemic ends.

Still, owning elephants is a burden that many cannot bear. In the past few months, more than 50 elephants have been put up for sale by fighting owners across the country. In addition, the Save Elephant Foundation has given shelter to 23 other elephants in its Elephant Nature Park since the beginning of the pandemic.

Rescued elephants at Elephant Nature Park in Chiang Mai Province. Image courtesy of the Save Elephant Foundation.

Unethical practices are re-emerging

While the circumstances have varied for elephants that have returned to the villages, experts agree that conditions for the elephants remaining in the camps have likely deteriorated. Many elephants have been chained up over the past year and have had little opportunity to exercise. “These elephants get bored and develop more health problems due to lack of exercise,” Chatchote Thitaram, a veterinary specialist at Chiang Mai University’s elephant research and education center of excellence, told Mongabay.

With the loss of international tourists, some elephant camps are benefiting from an increase in domestic tourism. World Animal Protection has received reports of some unethical practices that have become rarer before the pandemic. “In Phuket, young elephants are reportedly being led into the ocean to pose for photos with tourists,” says Schmidt-Burbach.

The pandemic has highlighted the risks of tourism becoming overly dependent on elephants and their keepers, and has prompted animal welfare organizations to urge the government and the tourism industry to make policy changes.

However, with Thailand’s captive elephant entertainment industry estimated at more than $ 500 million annually, it is an uphill battle to make change. The legislation still classifies captured elephants as goods. “The business side of the elephant tourism industry is fighting hard to protect their interests,” says Lek. “But we continue to show why elephants need and deserve laws to protect them.”

World Animal Protection is working with the tourism industry to implement better practices to reduce reliance on tourism and the number of captive elephants. Currently 12 camps are supported, in which a total of 75 elephants live and 170 employees are employed who deal exclusively with observation tourism.

“An interesting development that we have seen in the last few years up to the start of the pandemic is that more tour operators – not only in Western countries, but also in China – are discontinuing conventional elephant activities such as elephant riding in favor of traveling from just observing and more humane alternatives, ”says Schmidt-Burbach. “I really hope that the travel industry will pick up where it left off at the beginning of the pandemic and not fall back into greed-driven profit maximization.”

Saengduean “Lek” Chailert, founder of the Save Elephant Foundation, with a herd of elephants. Image courtesy of the Save Elephant Foundation.

Breeding to make up for lost profits

Despite this shift in tourist attitudes towards more humane practices, the sheer volume of tourists prior to the pandemic was more than an ongoing demand. In the past decade, the total number of captive elephants used for tourism in Thailand increased by 70% according to a year 2020 report from World Animal Protection, which studied elephant welfare in several Asian countries. Further increases could be seen.

The organization is now concerned that the owners will take advantage of the downtime to breed their elephants in captivity and capitalize on the profits from an expected surge in tourism following the pandemic.

In June 2020, World Animal Protection and 190 other organizations called on the Thai government to put a temporary ban on private elephant breeding to prevent an increase in the number of elephants in captivity. So far, the Thai government has not given a response.

Such breeding takes place in captivity, sometimes with unexpected consequences. A distressed elephant owner recently contacted Lek: he had released his captive herd to breed with wild bulls that frequented nearby forests in the hopes that the offspring would benefit from the strong genes of the wild population. However, instead of returning to the village, the captured herd joined the wild elephants and went into the forest.

You still have to go back.

Banner image: Elephants and their keepers will return to their owners’ home villages in May 2020 with the kind permission of the Save Elephant Foundation.

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