Elephant Painting, Chiang Mai

This is the only place in the world (apparently) where elephants paint!

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• elephant
• painting

[journeyman47]

Elephants are amazingly intelligent. But did you know that they are beaten and poked with sharp sticks to train them? It's true. While they're training, they have up to four men hitting and poking them. And that's not even mentioning the "phajaan", the Thai "crushing" ritual where baby elephants' spirits are broken by horrible beatings, starvation and torture. Please don't support this abuse by going to elephant shows. Personally I'd rather see them behaving naturally, not doing silly tricks.

[Xokkeikatt]

The elephants trained to follow mahoots command out of fear of abuse suffered during training called pajaan that crushes the elephants spirit.A baby is roped in a small cage and can't move.Its beaten,starved, deprived to submission. Survivors are left with physical,emotional scars forever.The elephant moves a brush by commands from the mahoot.The elephants arent happy and work out of fear.Go the Elephant Nature Park north of Chiang Mai Thailand. Learn what the park does to save them from abuse.

[bigredmachine07]

I'm sure if you were beaten and tortured into submission you'd paint better than most other people too. Have a look at PETA and see for yourself. They are not taught out of love but out of fear. Fear that they will be abused horriffically if they don't paint the way the mahout wants, cause he wants to make money off them.

[journeyman47]

Actually elephants are being made to paint all over the world in camps, zoos, circuses.. it's the latest fad. Just plug in "elephant painting" in YouTube and over 300 videos come up. It's a shame, too, 'cause I'd rather see them playing and behaving naturally but apparently lots of people don't feel the same way.

[qazwas2001]

the painting at the beginning, the one with all the dots, I saw on sale on the internet. Can't remember how much, but it was expensive.

[BonesBlaster]

Yes they would be better in the wild. But if you think that they are just painting what they were taught, you need to check out more elephant art. Some of them are better painters than alot of people. These animals are far more intelligent than we give them credit for. Not only are they great artists, each artwork is of different subjects, not a picture that was taught but what the elephant thinks of!

[staphinfection]

Wonderful exploitation of these magnificent creatures, so rich white folk can sit around and gawk at them.

It's amazing what they can learn to do, and I'm glad they look like they're enjoying the challenge(like most trained animals do), but the fact that people think the elephant is actually being creative and painting whatever comes to mind is just silly. I'm sure the training process for this is long and hard(and full of sea-men!) and I wonder if the elephants wouldn't be better in the wild.