As most of you know, I recently took a trip to Thailand to help rehabilitate elephants into the wild. On this trip, I learned a lot about ethical and unethical elephant treatment, and I’d like to share that knowledge with anyone possible. The more people that know what’s okay to do with elephants and what’s not, the less people will treat them poorly!

Let me start with a confession: I, myself, have ridden an elephant previously. I wanted to say that just to clarify that I don’t want to shame anyone who has done it before, I just want to stop it from happening in the future! For me, it happened at a circus. They were selling tickets to ride the elephant, and as a kid it seems like the coolest thing ever. It didn’t appear to hurt the elephant at all, and no one had ever told me not to. When it comes to unethical elephant treatment, this is usually how it happens - lack of education.

In Thailand, elephants are owned by families, and used to make money. Although this is a strange concept for people, think of it like this: in Wisconsin, you either own a lake house or know someone who does. Same in Thailand, except with elephants, and they would say owning a house on a lake is a weird concept too.

Initially, elephants were used in warfare. Soldiers would ride in on elephant’s back, ready to go into battle. More recently but still quite long ago, elephants were used for logging in Thailand to make money. Today, that is illegal and elephants are used for making money through tourism.

The two big uses today are street begging, and entertainment shows. Street begging occurs on the busy city roads of Bangkok and Chiang Mai, where mahouts (the person in charge of the elephant) take the elephant around and ask for money to feed it. Entertainment shows are where the elephant helps mahouts get money by performing tricks such as painting, jumping over human beings, or even riding bicycles. Initially, it seems like there are no issues with these uses. But street begging actually occurs on asphalt, which burns the elephant’s feet in the heat of the Thailand sun. It also takes the elephants away from the forest, where the food they actually need to eat is! Elephants spend most of their days eating, so spending time anywhere other than the forest is really dangerous for them.

Entertainment shows are where most people get dragged into the elephant tourism industry in Thailand and other countries in Asia. There are many different forms of this. One is literally just shows where they do tricks, which are harmful because although the elephants look happy while doing it, in reality they know how to do the tricks because of much abusive training. They can often be left without food or water for days when they don’t listen, or hit to perform better. The reason elephants can do such good tricks is because they are such smart, caring, human - like animals. Because of this, it’s even more important to let them roam free, instead of perform tricks. No one is arguing that them painting, riding bikes, etc isn’t cute - no matter what the eles do, they always are adorable. If they did these actions naturally, no one would have a problem with it! The problem is what we don’t see, behind the scenes. They don’t perform these tricks naturally, and to do them, the elephant gets abused.

Lastly, the most tempting for most tourists - riding camps. Everyone wants that cliche instagram picture of them riding an elephant when they go to Thailand. I agree - it would be pretty cool to ride elephants, if it didn’t hurt them. How can it hurt them? It seems like they’re so big, and can carry so much weight! Unfortunately, the way an Asian elephant’s spine is curved makes it really painful for them to carry weight on their back, even just the weight of an average sized person! They can actually carry the most weight on their necks, but even that isn’t preferable.

The mahouts love their elephants, but will take them wherever will make money for their families. While they’d love to keep their elephants in the forest to roam free, it takes everyday people like you and me visiting ethical programs while vacationing, instead of riding camps or shows.

While you won’t get to ride them in these places, you’ll get to interact with them naturally, as elephants should. They are really gentle and loving creatures. I promise, it’s much more rewarding to play with a happy elephant who’s treated right and therefore has it’s personality show through than a miserable elephant in a riding camp. The elephants I saw on my trip really create a bond with you. They love when you come to see them, using their trunks to play with you and wrap them around you for a hug. Even in these ethical programs, you still get to feed the elephants bananas and feed, so you can still get your cute Instagram photo.

You also can do health checks on the elephant, and record their behavior. At the end of the day, you can go home knowing you’ve spent your money towards something that helps elephants be healthy and happy, rather than hurting them. Like I said at the beginning, there’s nothing wrong with being uneducated and riding an elephant - I myself have done that as well. But now you know, and can spread the word to anyone else.

If you hear of someone going to Thailand or anywhere else with Asian elephants, make sure to inform them ahead of time about all the great help they can be, rather than hurting elephants. At the end of the day, it’s up to you to decide: am I going to be an elephant friend, or foe? I think we all know what the right decision is.