In holiday hotspots, thousands of elephants are being tormented, trained and exploited, all to entertain tourists for money. They’re forced to perform tricks, carry holidaymakers on their backs, or let people touch, wash and pose with them.
These wild animals should be living free in their natural habitat. But instead, baby elephants are torn from their mothers, chained up, put through a brutal training process and forced to endure a lifetime of misery as entertainers.
It’s an outrage that elephants are treated this way. But all too often, tourists simply don’t realise. They go on elephant rides or visit elephant attractions to see animals they love up close, and don’t see the brutal reality behind the scenes.
Together, we can end elephant abuse forever. By exposing the grim reality of elephant tourism and working with venue owners, travel companies and governments, we can give elephants happier, healthier lives.
Elephants in the wild
As the world’s largest land-based mammal, elephants can grow up to six metres long and weigh up to 5,000kg.
These huge creatures need space and freedom to thrive. In the wild, elephants travel long distances and spend 12-18 hours a day eating grasses, bark, roots, leaves and stems. They bathe often in water, mud and dust.
Elephants are intelligent, sensitive animals that need the company of others. In their natural habitat, they form close-knit groups with complex social structures, and can live for 70 years.
A life in captivity can never fully meet an elephant’s needs. And all too often, they’re treated appallingly. Elephants are tied up on concrete floors, fed poor diets and given no opportunity to do things they naturally would in the wild.
They spend their lives alone, doing stressful and strenuous work, and tend to die much younger.
Elephants are wild animals with wild instincts. It just isn’t possible to train them in a humane way to cope with the stress of performing for tourists.
Elephants in the tourist trade are forced to endure a horrific training process. Known as ‘the crush’, it’s designed to destroy elephants’ wild spirits so that holidaymakers can touch, wash or ride them without being harmed.
Young elephants are ripped from their mothers, tied up alone, starved and beaten, sometimes for weeks, until they’re terrified into submission. They then spend the rest of their lives in chains, being controlled by poles with sharp hooks.
The constant cruelty elephants suffer causes them immense suffering and trauma.
