- Target:
- TERESA MAY AND HEADS OF ALL COUNTRIES
- Region:
- GLOBAL
- Website:
- www.elephantsinperil.co.uk
Asian elephants are an endangered species. Experts believe there are now less than 2000 wild elephants living in Thailand. The population is declining at a rapid rate due to loss of habitat.
Illegal capture and trade for use in the tourism industry is also a big problem.
This industry thrives because foreign visitors all want to ride elephants, or watch them do tricks, paying good money for the privilege.
But the fact is that wild elephants need to be tamed before they can be ridden. Except the taming process in Southeast Asia is not the same as with a wild horse. It’s much more brutal, and is accomplished when the elephants are very young.
Baby elephants are tortured so that they will be broken and moldable by their owners. They are taken away from their mothers far too early so that they can learn to paint pictures (elephant painting is a famous attraction for tourists in Thailand). The mahouts (elephant riders) use sharp hooks on the end of sticks to hit the elephants very hard on the sensitive skin behind and inside their ears, their neck, and their eyes.
After this sort of treatment, a broken baby elephant no longer cries for its mother or nanny - it does not even recognize them. There is also a process called the Phajaan, which refers to the breaking of the elephants to do the mahouts’ bidding. One aspect of the Phajaan is the Crush. This is when a young elephant is chained into an extremely tight cage with his/her legs each to a post for days. It is constantly physically abused until its spirit is “crushed”, the will taken completely out of it, so that it can be under the mahouts’ control. Treatment as awful as this continues for the elephants’ entire life.
Brutal elephant training has been a traditional practice in Southeast Asia for hundreds of years. The problem these days is that most captive elephants in Thailand are used to entertain tourists rather than for traditional purposes like logging or military use.
It’s our demand for elephant rides and circus acts that leads to more baby elephants getting captured from their mothers, tortured, and sold off to entertain us.
We need to bring a stop to this. Before, you ride and elephant in Thailand, please at least take the time to look up proper sancturies that care for the elephants properly and not just pay a street mahout to ride his elephant.
You can read more about elephants lives in Thailand on my website - www.elephantsinperil.co.uk and other websites.
Its time proper laws are made, before its to late and there are no elephants left to see anymore.
We, the undersigned, call on the above mentioned to get together and make proper laws for ownership of elephants in Thailand and other countries.
Ownership licences and checks need to be made. To stop the horrendous treatment of these highly intelligent animals.
Make sure they live in proper places, with plenty of space and food.
Stop 'Crushing' = there are other ways to tame animals. Get rid of Bullhooks.
Edicate the Thai people from an early age about elephants. Mahouts can work with sancturies and if done properly there will still be plenty of jobs for all, without abuses elephants lives.
Act now before it is to late.
You can further help this campaign by sponsoring it
The STOP THE ABUSE OF ELEPHANTS IN THAILAND petition to TERESA MAY AND HEADS OF ALL COUNTRIES was written by JACQUELINE PLATTEN and is in the category Animal Welfare at GoPetition.