SJW's invade elephant tourism
I have really enjoyed seeing how the tourism involving elephants has evolved over the years. "Trekking" or riding the elephants, while not against the law, has diminished in popularity due to consumer pressure. This is not to say that anyone is picketing or protesting the parks because that hasn't happened at all as far as I know (and it would likely not be tolerated by either the park owners or the police if people tried to do that.)
The change happened because the public became aware that the only way that these creatures can be trained to have people ride around on their backs all day is by training them and unfortunately, this normally is possible through a large amount of negative reinforcement via fear of pain.
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There are very few parks that even offer a chance to ride the elephants up here in the north and like I just mentioned, this is not because of any law - the owners of the elephants are still entitled to do what they want. However, due to market conditions, most of these trekking parks were forced to change their business model in order to cater to a crowd that wants a more ethical experience.
This is all great information. I hate animal abuse and I also hate governmental coercion... so this is actually the best result that I and many other like-minded individuals could possibly hope for.
However... right on cue, the problem-makers that will never be satisfied will always find something to complain about because they see it as their duty to suck all the fun out of life.
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This absurd list of criteria would basically make all elephant sanctuaries fail their SJW test. People want to touch the elephants and Asian elephants are very calm for the most part and they enjoy the attention as well - especially if you have some food to offer them.
According to their rules, the only ethical park wouldn't be a park at all. They would simply be wandering the jungle on their own and you would just have to happen across them and then you should never touch them. Forget that this is environmentally and logistically impossible. Johnny Internet knows more than the veterinarians because he saw a touching youtube video. All of his (or her) rules and decisions are based on impossible "feels" instead of feasibility.
In an ideal world there would be large plots of natural land where elephants roamed free and lived in harmony with their human neighbors but that is not the world we live in today. Any place that elephants are kept MUST have a physical barrier to contain them.
The part about "are their babies there?" is particularly absurd - Where exactly would you like to see these babies born Karen?
Elephants are gigantic creatures and despite the fact that Asian elephants are generally quite docile they accidentally wreck havoc on any environment they enter. An adult elephant can easily completely decimate a pineapple plantation in an afternoon.
The emergence of these warnings or signs around Chiang Mai is just one more reason that I feel the Social Justice Warriors (SJW's) can not possibly be placated. This is true in all other manors of life too.
If someone gives in to their demands they create new demands because it isn't about justice, it is about perpetually having a cause and always being able to claim victim-hood... it is about constantly having something to bitch about and so they can virtue-signal in an attempt to compensate for what might be an extremely low sense of self-worth.
tl;dr
The new changes to "elephant parks" are wonderful and as ethical as they can possibly be. The fact that this was done voluntarily by the elephant owners is just magnificent. But this is not enough for the activists and nothing ever will be. They cannot be pleased no matter what changes. I believe the expression is "moving the goal-posts"... and this is what these SJW clowns will do forevermore.
Everything has 2 sides..
The camps should maybe better controlled.
I enjoyed some elephant trekking tours already, in Chiang Mai, Koh Chang and Pattaya.
I never saw any abuse or had a feeling the elephants don't like what they do.
The opposite, on the tour at Koh Chang we took a bath and swim and dive together with the elephant and I'm 100% sure the elephant enjoyed it very much as well as the near contact to humans.
So there are always 2 sides.
Have a great day
Tom
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Animals got equal right on earth as we humans do. although animal exploitation is inhumane but certain tourist only support this, I guess if they deny to offer services like ride or whatever from trained animals than the people owning animals will have no reason to keep animals.
First of all I donot get this point that how to people own wild animals, they aren't anybody's property for sure.
But for instance It's great that the owners have made such initiative.
anyways, keep flourishing!