Elephant Trekking in Northern Thailand

In interesting, if uncomfortable experience! For me the jury is still out on the ethics of it. One one hand using Elephants for tourism has looked after a lot of former logging elephants which may otherwise have died. On the other hand, they seemed to be breeding elephants there and though I don't know for sure, I doubt they were to be re-introduced to the wild. Enjoy! Any opinions welcome.

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• elephant
• trek
• trekking
• northern
• thailand

[journeyman47]

Ok, at least you put a little thought into it, which is more than most. But maybe you didn't know that a lot of elephants in those camps who give birth will kill their babies-- yes, it's true-- rather than let them live a life of misery like they live. And they are animals who are normally fiercely protective of their young.

It sounds like you knew something was wrong, but were too lazy to do any further checking into it before you paid to do it.

[trippydog]

Yes maybe. I didn't expect them to be be breeding them and when I found out they were we were already committed to it, even if I had wanted to change my mind language difficulties and the location would have made that hard. I'm sure there's much better places for them, but also much worse. Where we went, they didn't seem to be in any distress and were well looked after. It's easy to criticise, but I think there are much worse situations of animals being used purely for human pleasure. (cont..)

[trippydog]

(cont..) I also went diving in Thailand and after that I think us keeping tropical fish in small tanks is worse, along with any other animals kept as 'pets' that don't gain anything from human interaction. However we will always relate to mammals more than other animals won't we? At least the elephants aren't being breed by their thousands to run around a track while we bet on it.

[journeyman47]

Ah, ignorance is bliss, isn't it?... except for the poor elephants, who have to haul the clueless tourists around on their aching backs... please do some checking into this kind of abuse before doing it again next time. Anyone could have told you this is wrong. You should have known yourself. OPEN YOUR MIND. Do your homework. Stop using animals for entertainment! Check out the Elephant Nature Park Sanctuary's website for more info on this kind of exploitation. Thank you.

[trippydog]

Thanks for your comments. I think ignorance is probably the wrong word. I knew more about it than most tourists. If you read my comment you'll see I was concerned about them seemingly breeding elephants there, but to me it seems better than former logging animals are used in tourism than left to die. They have a better life than a lot of horses in this country.

[journeyman47]

Exactly, I'm against all forms of animal "entertainment", whether it be circuses, horse races, rodeos, zoos, the list goes on....

Good answers, anyway. At least now you know for next time, and can tell others you know who might be going there. And please check out that Elephant Nature Park website; you'll learn a lot.