Mahouts under fire for elephant care

Twice as many elephants work in Thailand’s tourism industry as the rest of Asia combined, with the vast majority kept in “severely inadequate conditions”, a report said yesterday.

Researchers from World Animal Protection (WAP) spent two years visiting 220 venues using elephants across Asia, in what they describe as the most comprehensive survey to date of a rapidly growing, lucrative, but poorly regulated industry.

Their data showed pachyderm welfare routinely came in second place to turning a fast profit, with three-quarters of Asia’s captive elephants kept in conditions that were rated poor or unacceptable.

Thailand stood out as the global epicentre. Of the 2,923 elephants WAP documented working within Asia’s tourism trade, 2,198 were found in Thailand alone. The next largest industry was India, with an estimated 617 elephants, followed by Sri Lanka on 166, Nepal on 147, Laos on 59 and Cambodia with just 36.

All the venues visited, which researchers said represented 90% of the industry, were rated on a scale of 1-10 in terms of conditions with 77% scoring between just one to five — what researchers classified as “poor or unacceptable”.

“When not giving rides or performing, the elephants were typically chained day and night, most of the time to chains less than three metres long. They were also fed poor diets, given limited appropriate veterinary care and were frequently kept on concrete floors in stressful locations,” the report said.

India fared the worst on living conditions with an average score of 4.4, followed by Thailand on 4.6, Nepal on 4.8, Sri Lanka on 4.9 and on Laos 5.0.

Cambodia averaged 6.5 but researchers noted there were just 36 elephant in four venues, two of which got good marks.

Highest rated venues rarely or never chained their elephants, limited or banned close interactions with tourists and allowed the animals to socialise in herds. In Thailand only eight venues were rated good, compared to 114 rated poor.

Ittipan Khaolamai, manager of the Royal Elephant Kraal in Ayutthaya province which is home to around 90 elephants, defended the use of elephants as tourist attractions, saying the keepers treated the animals well because their livelihood depended on them.