ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES 

Apart from illegal poaching due to ivory trade and destruction of habitats, elephants face another threat – tourism. This is more common in Asia with Asian elephants, in countries such as Thailand and India where there is tourist demand for elephant rides, elephant petting sessions or for elephants to perform tricks and shows. In order to meet this demand, some individuals have turned to capturing elephants from the wild and even falsifying their registration papers so that these elephants can be exported to meet demands in other tourist destinations as well.

A video by PETA Asia on the plight of baby elephants where people are trying to capture and train them for performance.

While this may not seem too big of an issue, many of these elephants are also kept in deplorable conditions. Combined with the way they were captured, many of these elephants do not survive. Research done by World Animal Protection (WAP) just this year found that up to 77% of the elephants are kept in shocking and cruel conditions. Most of them are chained in their confines and can perform up to 6 shows daily without breaks. They are also forced to stand on hard floors near busy roads and streets for long periods of time. Elephants have a high sensitivity to noise and can hear a wider range of sounds compared to humans. Henceforth, being near busy roads can lead to over-stimulation and stresses the elephants unnecessarily.

TROPHY HUNTING

Additionally, trophy hunting for elephants is still allowed in certain countries to cater to individuals who seek the thrill of hunting a big elephant bull or obtaining an ivory tusk. More common in Africa than Asia, this is justified by their governments as making revenue based on a limited amount of elephants being hunted and re-directing the revenue into conservation efforts or helping local communities so that they would not turn to poaching as a livelihood. However, corruption interferes and many of the hunting fees paid do not actually reach the local communities or conservation projects. In countries where elephant trophy hunting is allowed, elephants’ population numbers continue to fall. This is further compounded by the fact that some countries have an export ban on the amount of ivory and that ivory from trophy hunting is excluded from the quota.

Even though the scale at which this is happening is much smaller than that of poaching for ivory, it still demonstrates a lack of awareness and environmental values in protecting a species that has been on a decline for many years. In addition, the availability of such hunting sprees inadvertently advocates the idea that an individual’s action will not have any significant impact on the general population of elephants. This belief can severely hinder elephant conservation efforts and cause serious obstacles in trying to maintain or revive the elephant population.