FEATURE - Thai elephant torture video sparks animal rights
row
Date: 20-Dec-02
Country: THAILAND
Author: Tessa Unsworth
The ritual, carried out daily for up to a week, is part of a young
Thai elephant's training by villagers for a working life entertaining
tourists in Thailand, and has been secretly videotaped by animal
rights activists.
"Our footage shows elephants covered with wounds, blood, bruises...and
back of the legs covered with diarrhoea as a result of the fear and
stress," says Jason Baker, Asia representative for People for the
Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).
PETA used the video to launch a global campaign last week urging
tourists to boycott Thailand, hoping to hit the country where it hurts
and force the government to ban the tethering of elephants and their
use in tourist shows.
But PETA's findings have been challenged by conservationists and the
Thai government, which says the group is promoting a one-sided
campaign about the treatment of elephants, Thailand's national symbol.
Conservationists and the government say there are few alternatives to
domestication or living in captivity for the country's estimated 4,000
elephants.
In a word, space is the issue.
The elephants' natural habitat is disappearing fast, eaten away by
rapid urbanisation, greater demands for resources and a growing human
population.
"IT'S JUST TOO DANGEROUS"
Critics say the campaign video misrepresents the overall humane
treatment of most domesticated elephants and could do more damage than
good in the long run.
"We have to remember that 150 years ago Thailand had only six million
people and was almost entirely covered by forest," says Richard Lair,
an American adviser to Thailand's National Elephant Institute.
"Now it has more than 60 million people and only 20 percent forest.
You cannot release these elephants back into the wild. They will
likely start crop raiding, injuring people and people will start
injuring them. It's just too dangerous."
A single elephant in the wild needs about 8,000 acres (3,200 hectares)
to survive, and there is little choice but to keep more than half the
country's stock in captivity, says Lair, who runs a conservation
centre in Thailand's north home to 49 tuskers.
The Thai government has taken steps to protect elephants and says it
is drafting laws to ensure this.
Laws already ban the use of elephants in the logging industry and to
beg for food and money in the capital, Bangkok.
The state funds a number of elephant centres employing local and
foreign conservationists to care for and train captive elephants for
work in the tourism industry so that handlers and owners can earn
money to support them.
LITTLE JEWEL
Three-year-old Jewel is a favourite with tourists who flock to watch
him perform musical numbers, paint pictures and do tricks at
twice-daily performances at the government-funded Lamphang Elephant
Conservation Centre in northern Thailand.
It is only four months since he went through a process similar to,
though far less brutal than, that captured in PETA's footage, says
Lair.
Jewel is already a confident performer and an important money earner
at the centre, which relies on the revenue to supplement government
funds, Lair said.
"When it's done well, there may be a little bit of physical pain, but
it's more like the trauma of being separated from your mother on the
first day of school - you cry and scream."
Lair said the hook-like instrument used by elephant trainers, or
mahouts, was not meant to be used as a violent tool as shown in the
PETA video.
"The hook is more like a conductor's baton than a policeman's
truncheon."
Preecha Pehuangkum, chief veterinarian at the government Forest
Industry Organisation and chairman of the National Elephant Institute,
said authorities seek to teach villagers to use more humane methods.
"In the video...they are hill tribespeople who are not
educated and have trained their elephants like this for more
than 200 years," he said. "We are trying to...teach them new
meth
