Elephants and Tigers

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Like every tourist that visits Thailand I obviously rode an elephant (twice actually) and went to see the tigers! While it was completely amazing to see these wonderful creatures, many people have asked me about the welfare of these animals; the most pressing question being 'are they drugged or neglected?' I don't claim to be an expert on the Thai tourist industry surrounding Tigers and Elephants, but I will do my best to shed some light on these attractions from my own experiences.

 

For my tiger experience I visited Tiger Temple in Kanchanaburi, which is around 2 and a half hours from Bangkok. The temple is run by monks, volunteers and local Thai staff who raise and look after the tigers. I got chatting to one American volunteer, who had been working at the temple for just over four months, and she explained how the temple was run and how the tigers were raised and treated. She was adamant that the tigers were not drugged, emphasising that monks do not believe in interfering with nature and lifecycles. Instead, the tigers were calm  and able to interact with tourists for a number of other reasons. All the tigers in Tiger Temple were hand raised from birth in captivity, and as a result were used to regular human contact. Furthermore, the tigers were fed more regularly than they would in the wild, slowing down their metabolism and making them more placid. It was reassuring to know that the tigers weren't being mistreated for the sole purpose of tourism, an industry that I was directly funding by even visiting Tiger Temple. However, if the word of this young volunteer wasn't enough, tourists could later watch the tigers playing, eating and interacting with each other in their enclosure, firmly putting to bed any niggling doubt that the tigers were being drugged for tourist purposes.

 

 

I was lucky enough to ride elephants twice while in Thailand, and both experiences were pretty similar. My first elephant ride was also in Kanchanaburi and I was completely in awe of these amazing animals. Each ride lasted around half an hour and took place on a well worn jungle path and some fields by the side of a river. It wasn't the most comfortable method of transport I've ever been on, but it was probably the most spectacular with a pretty good view point as well! However, after each ride ended I couldn't help but feel sorry for the elephants and guilty for not being able to do anything about it; in fact I was probably making matters worse by paying for the ride in the first place. It is well known that Elephants are extremely intelligent and sociable creatures, who roam around in large family groups. Yet these elephants were shackled up, separated from each other with a sole purpose of shipping excited tourists round a track all day. Therefore, my elephant experience ended in a complete mix of emotions; I was torn between awe filled excitement at the sight of these beautiful creatures, and shameful guilt as they were being deprived of freedom.

 

 

 

Despite both the tigers and the elephants living in captivity, I feel that the tigers were treated with much more respect than the elephants. While the tigers were chained up for parts of the day to entertain the masses of tourists, this was only for a limited period and they were free to roam around their large enclosure for the rest of the day. This is put in stark contrast with the lives of the elephants, who are constantly chained up and their only freedom is to carry tourists around the same trail day after day; which isn't freedom at all. While I don't regret my experiences with these amazing animals, in an ideal world no animal would be kept in such unnatural captivity.

 

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