It's cruel. It's abuse. It's wrong. Elephant bathing is one of those things which in a guide book seem like the funniest thing you could ever do, but the reality of it is quite different.
I watched a few tourists "help an elephant bathe" in the Chitwan National Park in Nepal.
The procedure is simple. The dumbo driver tells the elephant to lie down in the shallow river. The tourists climb on and the driver tells the elephant to get up.
Then the biggest mammal in the world gushes water from his trunk to the tourist's face. Ha-ha.
Elelphant is told to go down again and splash, into the river the tourist dives.
Which would be very nice and funny if the elephant wasn't whacked and kicked to perform this tourist ritual.
"Helping an elephant bathe" a term used in the LP was one of the things I really wanted to do in Nepal. I get all silly around these massive animals. Their presence is so commanding, yet they seem so emphatetic as if their yielding to man's wishes was only because they wanted to help out. Elephants are my favourite animals.
A visit to the Elephant Breeding Center will clear one's head of such childish thougts. The croggy little informantion centers goes into surprising detail explaining how elephants are trained for taking tourists to tour the national park.
They start training the elephants when they are 2-4 years old. The young elephant is separated from his mother, and given very little food a water to make it weak. They chain its legs and then drag it around, using a particular little axe to force it forward. Worst of all they treat the elephant's sensitive skin (yes, the elephant's sensitive skin) with fire so that it gets hardened enough for a saddle. After a month's torture the massive animal has succumbed.
Not fun at all.
I've heard that there have been initiatives to find softer ways to train elephants. I really hope that they succeed.
PS.
The info center also tells the tale of wild male elephants who go to nearby villages in search of home brewed alcohol and get drunk. That part of the center I really liked. And the amazingly cute baby elephants who thump around freely in the center. If only watching them did not make one feel so guilty.
2 comments:
I hear you! It always surprises me how easy it seems to be for other people to ignore animal cruelty and exploitation.. I feel really baffled by it!
I was going to comment on your other, more popular blog, but my organs would burst of the splenetic juices of fury that begin to boil when I read the comments of those climate change fucktards that plague your blog like anal centipedes.
However, I did have something else, and equally sincere, to say about your post on the elephants in Nepal: C’mon. I know you mean well, but this is sounding like those countless hippie douchebags with the mentality of ‘let’s go to a third world country and complain about animal rights’. Nepal isn’t exactly a beacon of human solidarity, despite of all those nice Hindu temples, and what really grinds my shit is the way people go on about some fucking elephants being whacked with some sticks. Cry me a river! Nepal is poor nation with a history of torturing those suspected of having affiliation to the Maoist (whose ranks included child soldiers), yet the only issue you found worthwhile of complaining about was the fact that animals are treated poorly in a national park, and sadly, based upon the comments people have left on your blogs, they too feel that a crusade needs to made by westerners to stop the cruel treatment of animals in a country where human rights are down the toilet. I fail to fathom the idea of this: you demand people to treat animals by standards that they’re porbably not treated by. It’s elitist , and just generally fail. I don’t know about you, but in my eyes the value of a human life far exceeds that of an animal. Sorry. (don‘t take this in a bad way, anyway, what do I know).
Otherwise, I do relish your blogs tremendously and I wish to see more frequent updates on this one ( your subjugation of the English language and your witticism make your blog delectable reading).
Happy travels, for great justice!
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