All around Thailand elephant trainer also known as mahouts believe in stabbing their elephants with hooks and other weapons to get them to behave and obey their every command, this treatment causes both physical and mental disabilities to the elephant and has been happening for hundreds of years. This has resulted in a major decrease in the population of the Asian elephant in Thailand.
“If we don’t do anything now we may loose this beautiful giant” said Lek the founder of the elephant nature park in Chiang Mai.
In Thailand one of the biggest industries is the tourism industry, many of these mahouts put their elephant into the tourism industry, like providing rides for tourists or putting them in a circus to earn an income enough to take care of the elephant and the mahouts family. But many of the things the elephants are made to do hurt them and more often than not handicap or cripple them.
Sometimes because of an insufficient income the mahout and elephant are forced into begging during which they go to the city at night and beg on the streets, this has resulted in many injuries to the mahout and elephant due to the traffic.
Many of the people who understand the situation want this cruelty to this gentle giant to end and are figuring out ways to stop this, one such way to gain the animals trust and loyalty without violence is to use positive reinforcement with food, this is what they are doing at the Elephant Nature Park, Chiang Mai, they are now planning on expanding to shelter more elephants that they will rescue from situations like street begging.
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