Animal activists press parks to get tourists off elephants’ backs
ELEPHANT rides could soon be a thing of the past as luxury game reserves come under increasing international pressure to terminate the popular tourist pastime.
The drive to end elephant safaris comes as international animal welfare organisation World Animal Protection launches its “Wildlife not Entertainers” campaign.
More than 80 travel companies worldwide have pledged to stop selling and promoting elephant rides and shows, according to the organisation.
In South Africa about 14 facilities offer elephant-back safaris, which cost around R2 000 per person, and five arrange interactions between tourists and the animals.
Isabel Wentzel, who heads the National Council of SPCAs’ wildlife protection unit, said: “Until we published photographs and irrefutable evidence that [inhumane training methods were] happening in our own country, there was a misunderstanding. It was generally thought that such methods were only used in Asia.
“From then there was a ripple effect and a general reaction against elephant riding, which continues, and the consequences are now being felt by the industries who operate them.”
A recent investigation by the unit at one facility revealed “severe beatings of elephants, prodding with electric prodders and the use of ropes and chains around the legs of the elephants”, said Wentzel.
The NSPCA consulted international and local elephant behaviour experts “and in their collective opinion they support our stance that there is no humane way to train elephants to willingly submit to carrying riders on their backs”.
The luxurious Camp Jabulani in Hoedspruit is among the first to announce that it will phase out elephant-back safaris.
“By April 1 2017 . . . Camp Jabulani will no longer include elephant rides,” owner Adine Roode stated on the camp’s blog.
Roode said the decision was prompted by “increasing international pressure against elephant-back safaris, because of the abusive way in which a proportion of the animals are, sadly, trained”. Roode’s herd was rescued from a commercial farm in Zimbabwe in 2002.
“The elephant-back safaris were put in place as a continuation of what they had been trained to do in Zimbabwe. From the beginning we worked closely with an advisory committee of veterinary specialists who guided us in respect of training the elephants, sustaining their emotional and physical wellbeing, and assessing which of the animals were to be used for elephant-back safaris (only six of the herd of 14 participate in the safaris).”