Elephants take to the polo field

ELEPHANTS tromped across a manicured pitch in Bangkok last week in the kick-off of a polo tournament to raise money for the animals, which are celebrated as a national symbol but often subject to abuse.

Dozens of elephants were trucked down to the Thai capital for the four-day King’s Cup Elephant Polo Tournament, an annual charity event that brings players from around the world to a field on the banks of the Chao Phraya river.

During lumbering matches that resemble a slow-motion version of horse polo, handlers – known as ‘mahouts’ – steer the animals while players wielding extra-long mallets take aim at a small white ball rolling underfoot.

The cup, now in its 16th year, has raised US$1.5 million (RM5.84 million) for charities that help Thailand’s wild and domesticated elephants.

The tournament has faced criticism in the past from animal rights activists, who say mahouts must inflict pain on the elephants to manoeuvre them around the pitch and provoke crowd-pleasing roars.

But event organisers insist the competing elephants receive plush treatment and plenty of rest.

“They are elephants that may normally work in camps somewhere ... and our aim is to bring them here for a week of holiday so to say.

“We have our vets here, they are being well fed, they’re having a very good time,” said Tim Boda, one of the event’s organisers.

“They come and play a maximum of about 35 minutes per day,” he added.

The money raised from last year’s competition was donated to training for mahouts and vets, plus projects aimed at mitigating conflict between wild elephants and Thai villagers, according to event organisers.

A 2017 report by World Animal Protection found Thailand to be the global epicentre of the elephant tourism industry, in which businesses charge visitors for a chance to ride and bathe the beasts.

The kingdom employs twice as many pachyderms – 2,198 – in its tourism sector as the rest of Asia combined, with most kept in poor conditions, the report said.

Animal rights groups have long criticised the lucrative industry as inhumane, with many elephants relegated to lives on the end of a chain. – AFP-Relaxnews