Nowadays there are more and more camps that call themselves a reserve or camps where you can be, for example, “Mahout for a day”. This sounds wonderful, but it is often not the case for the animals. These camps have a set routine every day, a set schedule that the elephant must meet so that you, the visitor, can touch, wash and feed the elephant. Seven days a week. Every day again. And different people every time. How stressful is that? Is that really a form of freedom the elephants prefers?
This form of tourism, in which the elephant has to follow a fixed daily schedule, is still a form of entertainment in my opinion; the interaction between you and the animal is determined by the camp. The elephant is not completely free to do whatever it wants. And how do you get an wild animal to behave like that between people?
This is a clip from Thailand where they "train" a young elephant. Its ducht but the image speek of its own i think.
You are viewing a single comment's thread from:
I've gotten quite the education! Really appreciate that. Thank you!
Thanks for the idea, this makes a nice blogspot later :p