Thomas Cook still offering rides on abused elephants
Travel giant breaks its 2016 promise to ban cruel practice
I’m appalled Thomas Cook thinks it can get away with this JAI DAS WHO FILMED THE ELEPHANT RIDES
THOMAS COOK flogged elephant rides to British holidaymakers two years after it promised to stop.
The travel giant vowed to end selling rides in January 2016 after being urged to do so by a 175,000-signature petition.
Yet in December a student on a Thomas Cook trip filmed elephants in Goa, India, carrying people as well as being chained to trees and prodded by handlers.
The shocking video is revealed just days after the Daily Mirror highlighted the issue.
The BBC pulled an episode of Monty Don’s Paradise Gardens, in which he rides an elephant, from iPlayer.
Trainee primary schoolteacher Jai Das, 21, took the video at Sahyadri Spice Plantation during a trip to the region’s Dudhsagar waterfall.
He said they only found out about the elephant riding while on the way to the spice plantation for breakfast.
After eating, the group was led to a muddy patch behind a toilet block where elephants – named Lila and Lakshmi – were tied to a tree. He said they gave rides to 16 people over an hour and another coachload of tourists were waiting to take their place.
Jai, below, of Wotton-under-Edge, Glos, was told they had been there about 10 years, giving 20 rides a day. He said: “It didn’t seem right. I wasn’t comfortable with it at all. “We saw the handlers being cruel.
The elephants had to respond to different jabs to keep their mouths open as they posed for photos.
“Thomas Cook is a well-respected firm you expect to trust and expect the best from. I never thought they’d do anything so unethical, especially after their claim that they don’t offer such excursions.
“I’m appalled they think they can get away with it.”
According to animal rights’ charities, taming elephants to the point where they are so docile that they will give rides to humans involves a torture-like process. Thomas Cook said: “We take animal welfare very seriously.
“It is clear this excursion should not be available to book through Thomas Cook, and we are working to rectify this immediately.
“We were the first organisation to remove animal excursions from sale.
“We are continuing to review the programmes we offer our customers.”