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Caption: | WITH ANANTARA | ELEPHANTS
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Caption: I mentioned in my last Steller that I have just been in Thailand working with Anantara and my first stop was the Anantara Elephant Camp & Resort in the Golden Triangle.
This job was a tough one for me to accept because of my personal beliefs about the use of elephants in the tourism industry.
Since the property has a Foundation set up to care for the elephants, and an amazing founder in John Roberts, I decided to take the work and see what I could learn.
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Caption: The Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation was started in 2003 and has evolved a lot since it's inception.
Originally started as a means to ethically work with elephants in tourism, founder John Roberts has since done a lot for the plight of these incredible animals.
The foundation is predominantly funded by Anantara and it's parent company Minor International. It's purpose is to create sustainable solutions for the 3,500 elephants currently in captivity in Thailand.
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Caption: The capturing and training of elephants in Thailand is not new, there is a 4,000 year history of this culture with these animals.
Thai "mahouts" are often carrying on a family legacy of owning and working with elephants. As much as the world at large would love to see a stop to all elephant tourism there is much more to the picture than simply banning it.
How do you break a 4,000 year old tradition and what do you do with the existing elephants in captivity if there is a ban? These are questions that leading experts on elephants struggle to find answers to.
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Caption: One of the reasons why we hate the thought of elephants working is that they are not a domestic animal, they are still wild.
In order to train an elephant to work they say that the mahout needs to break the will of the animal. Despite a lot of sensationalist headlines around this the fact remains that training is becoming less harsh and majority of elephants working now have been bred in captivity.
Anantara's Elephant Foundation doesn't just insist on fair treatment for the 20 elephants living at their property, they also promote proper training for all elephants through workshops and positive reinforcement training.
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Caption: Elephants at the Anantara property in the Golden Triangle are chained at night as the twenty animals here are not related and could fight if left to mingle in a fenced area.
However their chains are 30 metres long and they have plenty of time during the day without them.
These (mainly) gals "work" a maximum of 6 hours a day with tourists and my favourite activity was Walking with Giants which simply involved going for a walk with them.
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Caption: One thing that I learned here that I didn't know is that buying working elephants from their mahouts and giving them a place to live is not a solution.
Studies in Thailand have shown that once a mahout sells his elephant it is only a matter of time before that elephant is replaced, either from a dodgy captive breeding facility or (worse) from the wild.
Again, this is a 4,000 year old tradition and sadly elephants and their mahouts can make a LOT of money working in bad tourism products.
Despite the number of people I talk to who say they would never ride an elephant you wouldn't know it from a visit to Pattaya where hordes of tourists line up to watch elephants dance and play sports.
What we need is global education and a certification process to distinguish ethical elephant products from non-ethical.
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Caption: Another thing to consider is why do we love elephants so much? I ask this question all the time?
I have people debating my choices with me who then participate in the meat industry by eating farmed animals that are given no quality of life or love.
My personal opinion, yes I'm going to say it, is that eating commerically purchased meat is wrong. I understand that humans are not meant to be vegetarian but we also weren't designed to eat tidy little packets of meat daily or more.
If you want to make a difference to the lives of animals I think the first step is to only eat organic, ethically farmed meat and only on occasion.
Take notice of what's happening in the world; elephants are not the only animal suffering at the hands of man. Canned hunting in Africa, illegal wildlife poaching for traditional medicines in Asia, baby animals exploited for tourist photos ... the list goes on.
I believe each of us has a responsibility to learn about this stuff, educate others and MOST IMPORTANTLY to keep an open mind when talking to others. I can respectfully debate any opinion and my mind is always capable of changing. That's what travel does.
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Caption: Like most people I wish that all elephants were wild. I don't even like zoo's! I was scared that taking this job with Anantara would make me a hypocrite as I am resoundly anti elephant tourism.
Yet now that I've been here and had the chance to speak to John and his crew I can see that I have a lot more to learn.
IF we boycott elephant tourism right now the only ones to suffer are the elephants and their mahouts and families.
Do we kill an entire generation of elephants and leave 3,500 Thai men jobless? Do we release 3,500 captive bred, trained elephants back into a rapidly dangerous and dwindling wild environment? Do we create sanctuaries for themand if so, who pays?
The point is this is not an easy fix. Anantara are doing great work to make a hard situation better for the ones who matter, the elephants. They are welcome here on this property, under the Foundation, to live in ethical living conditions with on site professionals whilst the Foundation works to make differences that matter and count.
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Caption: You can read more from John Roberts here -
http://elephant-tails.anantara.com
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Caption: And now for some gratuitous shots from the resort ...
It's not just elephants you guys. ;)
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Caption: You can find out more about the Anantara Elephant Camp & Resort on their website -
www.goldentriangle.anantara.com
Or on Instagram,
www.instagram.com/anantara_goldentriangle
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Caption: THE END