The last time I rode an elephant, it was 2004, on an usually hot April day even for India. I was in Jaipur doing the first time visitor’s tour of the city so my friend Nicole and I mounted an elephant for the steep incline up to the Amber Fort. Elephants were bunched together and to seemingly keep ours, a gentle, small female named Maneesha, in line, her mahout beat her repeatedly on the head with a curled iron stick. We were furious, screamed at him to stop and made a deal to pay her day rate and take her out of service to let her go swimming in the pond at the base of the fort. The next day I went back and paid to let her go swimming again, beginning a relationship that continues to this day. I go to visit her in Jaipur where conditions have improved somewhat although she’s still working. And she remembers me for most likely one of the few kind gestures she experienced.

I wasn’t surprised then at PETA’s repeated advisories against elephant rides and other interactions with wildlife that are promoted to well meaning travelers. As PETA Foundation’s Associate Director of Captive Animal Law Enforcement, Rachel Mathews, explains, there is animal abuse behind even those activities that seem benign such as washing or feeding an elephant, activities frequently offered in Thailand, Sri Lanka and other Asian countries as well as rides in those countries and in southern Africa. For that reason, over 100 travel companies worldwide have stopped including elephant rides in travelers’ activities.

Laurie Werner

“Whether they are born in captivity or taken from the wild, elephants must be emotionally and mentally broken before they would allow people to climb onto their backs,” she says. “Baby elephants are taken from their frantic mothers so that their spirit can be broken and they won’t develop a sense of independence. Handlers use force and domination to keep elephants afraid and submissive. They’re repeatedly hit with bullhooks and they learn to obey commands or face the painful consequences.”

Travelers’ shouldn’t be fooled by places that present themselves as sanctuaries as well. “True elephant sanctuaries—which provide lifetime care centered on putting the animals’ social, psychological, and physical needs first—do not allow public contact or any other interaction that would disrupt the elephants’ choices and control over their environment,” she says. And there are potential dangers when humans are inserted into an elephant’s routine as an American traveler in Chiang Mai, Thailand, Whitney Lavaux, learned last month when she was hurled in the air by an elephant while washing his trunk. Fatalities have also occurred such as the death of a Scottish tourist last year after being thrown by an elephant and trampled in Koh Samui, Thailand.

How then to interact with wildlife? The answer is an obvious one. Go on safari and observe elephants in their natural habitat without interacting with them–if you can find a hide next to a water hole such as the one at Zimbabwe’s Singita Pamushana, you’ll want to spend hours there. It’s a thrilling experience and safer for all of you.

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