Cages, speed-breeding, fear-based training. Blatant animal abuse is hiding just below the surface of the wildlife tourism industry.
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Hands-on experiences with exotic animals are thriving, boosted by social media. But behind the scenes, animals involved in tourism often lead miserable lives. In this short documentary, National Geographic writer Natasha Daly investigates wildlife tourism in Thailand, where many visitors seek interactions with elephants.
Read more about Inside the Dark World of Captive Wildlife Tourism here: https://on.natgeo.com/2Q3vhBT
Read the full story, published in the June 2019 issue of National Geographic, here: http://natgeo.com/wildlifetourism
The nonprofit National Geographic Society helped fund this story. More reporting on animals by National Geographic's team is at Wildlife Watch: http://natgeo.com/wildlife-watch.
Inside the Dark World of Captive Wildlife Tourism | National Geographic
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- (sighs) Jesus. We came behind the stadium
where the elephants perform and we found this juvenile elephant. He had gaping red wounds at his temple. He also has a broken leg. The other one is chained up. He looks totally emaciated. Skin and bones. And this is the worst shape I've seen an elephant in in Thailand. (mellow music) All in the name of entertainment. (mellow music) (crowd cheering)
(intense orchestral music) Wildlife tourism is a massive industry accounting for 10-20% of
the global tou
rism industry. People go on vacation and
pay money to either view or interact with animals. I don't think we can ignore the role that social media plays. The sheer number of people now
not only posting their travel experiences, but consuming
others' travel experiences means that these things
are spread in an instant with the click of a button. But the issue with wildlife tourism is most people have absolutely no idea of what goes on behind the scenes. (crowd chattering) I reported this story on
wildlife tourism with photographer Kirsten Luce for a year. And we set out knowing that
we really had to sort of narrow our focus and
go to kind of hot spots around the world where this
industry is a massive part of the local economy. But there was nothing that prepared me for what I actually saw in the field. Especially when we went to Thailand. (mellow woodwind music) (tires scraping against road) (cage clanging) This is a place that puts on monkey shows and as you can see behind me, this monk
ey is in a small metal cage and you can see he's jumping over and over and this is called zoochosis and animals that are kept in captivity do this when they're in
psychological distress. (cage clanging)
(woodwind music) I'm here at a zoo on the top floor of a shopping mall in Bangkok. This kind of place, animals
are living in conditions that no living being should be living in. The only gorilla in Thailand
is apparently in this zoo. The gorilla was reaching
its hand through the cage onto a puddl
e on the concrete floor scooping up fingerfuls of water. It seemed to be the only way this gorilla could access water. (somber music) We just finished watching
the crocodile show which was pretty
disturbing and consisted of two trainers dragging crocodiles
around by their tails, smacking them on the head with sticks, and then everyone would laugh. It was like all designed
as a comedy routine. On most people's bucket
lists for going to Thailand, you're gonna want to see an elephant. So we went to
dozens
of elephant experiences all over Thailand. Mahouts, trainers that
care for their elephants, used their bull hooks on the
elephants to get them to pose to allow tourists to
take photos with them. A bull hook is a stick and at
the end of the wooden stick is a metal prong or hook. And this is the instrument
used to control an elephant. (crowd chattering) I'm here at Maetaman
Elephant Camp in Chiang Mai. (elephant trumpeting) I think the most shocking thing
was during the actual show. Some o
f the bull hooks
had nails on the end. I witnessed a couple of
mahouts that had nails in their hands and they were poking behind the elephant's ear to get them to perform and do the painting. (crowd chattering) A young elephant named Meena, she's four years old and
she performed in the show. She painted a picture. So she did have a nail in her ear. And after the show we walked over to where she was being kept. (broom scraping against ground) There was a chain around her
leg that had spikes in it
. The spikes were all the way
around, pressing into her skin. She was kind of hovering it in the air, because obviously it
hurt to put weight on it and I asked her mahout why and he said it's because she likes to kick. Her mahout said that he puts
it on for a little while to teach her and then he
takes it off at night. I decided that I wanted to come back later to see if she actually
was on a different chain. With permission of the facility we ended up coming back six hours later and I feel like
before I
got to her I just knew. (rain hitting structure) It's about 7:30 PM and you
can see it's getting dark and it's pouring rain. Meena has had a spiked
chain around her ankle since we last left her and her mahout, he told us that at night he removes it. But he hasn't and it was a lie. So I don't know how she's gonna sleep and it's really, really
upsetting to watch. It was the first time I
sort of witnessed deception that sort of runs through this industry and I wanted to see for myself
whe
re these animals are born, how they're trained, the
economics behind this industry. And if you wanna go to
ground zero basically of the elephant industry in Thailand, you have to go to Ban Ta Klang. (mellow music) There are 3,500 captive
elephants in the country and half of them are actually
sourced to Ban Ta Klang. It's a place where
elephants are bred, trained, and then when they are ready, they're sold down south to
camps around the country. (mellow music) The Thai government
actually offers
a subsidy to mahouts who care for elephants there. The elephant tourism industry
is a massive source of income for the country so they actively fund it, ensuring that the elephant
entertainment industry is healthy and that there
are always new babies being funneled in and that it is thriving. (motorcycle engine revving) Most people in the town are mahouts, meaning they work with
elephants for a living. A young man was happy to be honest with me about how they train their elephants and what touri
sts don't realize is that in order for an elephant
to be docile enough to stand there and let
you touch him safely, that elephant has to be
trained in the same way that an elephant throwing
darts at a show is trained as a young baby going through
abusive fear based training. What usually happens is
when a elephant is about two years old the baby is confined and over several days and weeks the baby is slowly trained. This young elephant... he's kinda freaking out. The first thing they teach
the b
aby is how to sit. He said they use a hook at the back and someone pulls down and then someone uses another hook at the front and the baby's legs are tied together and they pull the legs front and they do this over and over until the baby learns how to do it. He said to me we have to use the bull hook so the baby will know. (crowd chattering) Knowing that Meena was four years old and elephants live 80 years. They live as old as people do. She was at the beginning of what could be another 60, 65,
70 years of this life. Was very overwhelming
to sort of grapple with. So it's been three days since
we were last at Maetaman Camp. We're returning today just
to see what the situation is. And we'll of course check on Meena and see how she's being held in her stall when she's not performing. It's the spiked chain. Watch her foot, it's her right foot. (somber music) She was just out posing with tourists. Then her mahout just brought
her back to her (mumbles) and put the spiked chain
back around h
er foot and I'm realizing now
that this is her chain. This isn't a chain that he uses
sometimes to discipline her. This is her chain. She's been in it every
time we've seen her. There's no other chain in sight that he could possibly be switching out. It's tethered to the pole. If any tourist sort of
thinks, "Is this okay?" "Is this hurting the animal?" Most places are very quick
with a response to say, "Oh no, they're fine." "It's just the way the way it is." "Don't worry about it." And that sat
isfies most people and they say, "Oh okay, they
must know what they're doing." "They care for the animal." The system is actually
designed to be confusing. Most tourists I really do believe kinda wanna do the right thing. They love animals and they
wanna get close to them. It's simple. It's understandable. And since 2014 the
number of animal selfies that people have posted
has grown almost 300%. Part of what often inspires
people to go on this trip is because they saw someone else do it and they
want that
experience for themself. However, social media
really does go both ways. I wanted to actually
visit a couple of good elephant experiences in Thailand just to see for myself
what that looked like and how it differed from
places that may call themselves a sanctuary but offer
a lot of interaction. So we went to Elephant Valley
in Chiang Rai, Thailand. They have elephants that have been rescued from the traditional industry and tourists are not allowed
to get close to the elephants. This
is probably the only
interaction that tourists will get while they're here. It's snack time so they're able to feed each of the elephants some bananas and you can see this barrier is there mostly to prevent people from going into the elephant grounds. It's totally voluntary. The elephants come for snack time and then they can leave
whenever they want. It's a sustainable option for
elephant tourism in the area. Social media can actually
be harnessed for good. You can go to an ethical place and yo
u can use social
media to sort of educate your own communities on ways that they can be part of the solution. This entire industry is so
incredibly entrepreneurial that it can and does change on a dime. So when people decide that
they no longer want to give their money to a
certain sort of experience, and if enough people do that, then the experiences
themselves will shift. You the viewer and reader and traveler and just citizen are at
the heart of this story just as much as anyone else is. You
have tremendous power as
a consumer to change things. (mellow music)
Comments
In many cases, captive experiences with exotic animals rely on abusive training or treatment. To learn more, you can read on here: https://on.natgeo.com/2Q3vhBT
If tourists stop requesting these encounters there would be no need for such torture! This includes elephants, lions/tigers, primates, etc. STOP engaging in these 'photo opt' shops!! Keep the wild in wildlife. Get involved.
Funny how Thailand considers elephant a significant symbol in their cultural heritage, but openly allows such kind of acts. Inhumane and disheartening. 💔
Y'all was ready to cancel James Charles, but THIS deserves more cancel projects than any celebrity dramas
Thats kinda sad the way the elephant is resisting bieng hurt
PLEASE make a documentary length film and the word will spread just like blackfish did
I love the way she put forth the problem while also giving solutions and alternatives. Thanks for spreading the knowledge!
This needs to stop.
If social media like Instagram and Facebook banned images with exotic animals like they do other types of violence, that would a huge deterrent for many people.
I had to force myself to see this. Thank you for showing everyone what goes behind
And the sad part is, Elephants remember everything.
This was sooo sad to watch. Elephants are my favorite land animal.
if you look closely, at 1:51, there is a box that says “tip for elephant” where you put tips in. now i think we all are smart enough to know that those tips arent going to be used for the better of the elephant😞
WHY CANT THESE TYPES OF VIDEOS BE ON TRENDING!!! Come on now YouTube !!!🤬this deserves more views 🥺
I like how you highlight bad elephant encounters, but then still at the end show a more ethical alternative beneficial to the elephants, tourism, and the people.
Keep spreading this awareness! Thank you for bringing light to this
Now I get why Thanos wipe out half the universe
Made me cry we as humans need to stop being so self centered and start caring about other living things on this Earth 😔
This literally broke my heart,these animals are living in a prison
Its just like slavery, it's nothing different. If they could do it with people again they would. But animals cant speak up, so this is what we have .