While being in the wild, elephants provide the environment with a plethora of benefits. Firstly, they help keep habitats diverse and full of life by dispersing fruits and their seeds, creating gaps in the forest canopy to provide sunlight for the shorter plants to grow (Asian Elephants at the National Zoo, n.d.).

Without our big friends, biodiversity would significantly decrease and their ecosystems would lose supplies of water and food. Moreover, as a result of impacting ecosystems negatively, useful medicine-rich plants are destroyed and this would in turn affect future medicinal cures (Asian Elephants at the National Zoo, n.d.).

Furthermore, these elephants are useful to humans in various ways. Thus, they are domesticated for a multitude of reasons:

1. Warfare
   

   Courtesy of Flickr [labeled for noncommercial reuse]

   Elephants were trained and used during warfare in countries like India and China over several centuries. As male elephants are known for their strength and aggression, they are usually used to frighten enemies charge at great speeds (Domestication and Use of Elephants, n.d.).
2. Industry
   

   Courtesy of Flickr [labeled for noncommercial reuse]

   

   Courtesy of Flickr [labeled for noncommercial reuse]

   Due to their massive strength, elephants were very effective in slogging and lifting heavy logs. Ergo, elephants were trained to uproot trees and transport large logs. They are especially effective as a form of transport during hunting as they fit into the wild environment easily and at the same time, they need not to afraid of other predators, as they are larger (Domestication and Use of Elephants, n.d.).
3.  Zoos and Circuses
   

   Courtesy of Flickr [labeled for noncommercial reuse]

   Although animals’ rights activists are closing down zoos and circuses, there are still zoo and circus performances present today. They are still popular today because of the elephants’ ability to be trained to perform and also, simply because of their sheer size. (Domestication and Use of Elephants, n.d.). Tourists are yearning to see elephants painting, riding and are most interested in watching them perform. These tourism works are where elephants are greatly tortured for (Campbell, 2014).

   The TRAFFIC study states that up to 81 elephants have been captured illegally for sale to the Thailand tourist industry between 2011 and 2013. This is a result of laxed implementation of antitrafficking across Thai-Burmese frontier.

   

   Photo taken at the Singapore Zoo [Personal]