Nepal, India and Thailand are some places in the world that I have visited where they practice/practiced riding elephants — for work and for entertainment.  This has resulted in many strong opinions on whether or not to ride the animals.  Tourists come from all over to get to experience/ride the elephants.  But after learning more about the abusiveness associated with controlling the elephants, some think a little more about where they are putting their money.  Although not all of the riding businesses abuse the animals, some of them are unregulated and overwork the elephants by making them carry people back and forth too many times.

After addressing the criticism by ending the riding of elephants in some places in Nepal, India and Thailand have been gaining more tourists asking for elephant rides.  Because of increased demands in the elephant riding business in Thailand and India, people aren’t focusing on the way the animals are being treated.  For example: they are being ridden up to fortresses on cement multiple times without breaks between the excursions.  Nevertheless, there are still some places in India and Thailand that do consider the well being of the elephants that are being ridden.  Obviously, elephants are wild creatures and they shouldn’t be used to travel on the street or with cars. So clearly you would think that the tourists would use them to travel in their natural habitat, grass or sand.  But nope, most of them are being ridden on hot cement to go up stairs or up steep roads.

Luckily, there are still some people out there who think twice about how these tourist attractions often harm the animals.  For example, some places in Nepal have ended the riding of elephants due to the new judgement created by elephant awareness groups.  Instead of riding the elephants, they have the tourists walk next to or behind them with a guide.  The elephants have one steady trainer, who rides them and trains them so that people can be next to the elephants.  People can still get close to the elephants by feeding them and painting their trunks.  Some people are bitter about not being about to ride the elephants in Nepal, but there are other places in the world that still allow it.

After I thought about what I was going to write about for my blog post, that is overdue at this point, I figured why not write about my opinions on elephant riding.  I’ve witnessed the different types of treatment of the elephants.  Seeing the elephants being used like machines made me feel really bad for them.  After learning more about elephant riding, I’m still not crazy about the fact that people ride them for pleasure.  Hopefully in the future more people will realize that riding elephants isn’t right and there are other ways to give them exercise and enjoy these amazing animals.