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No One Needs To Ride An Elephant
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Sponsor: The Rainforest Site
Help restore dignity to these beautiful animals by supporting a ban on elephant ride attractions across the U.S.
Sign this petition to show your support for a ban on elephant ride attractions in the United States.
Elephants are not domesticated in the sense that dogs and cats have become [1], and they are certainly not being treated with the same love and compassion pets are given.
The elephant trade has attracted its fair share of illegal activity. Poachers capture and sell elephants to the tourism industry hoping to make money using the animals as attractions. The process to break and train an elephant for riding often involves brutal methods, much worse than a horse would experience [2].
Sadly, many people are not above paying for the “entertainment” of riding abused and broken elephants. In 2016, an elephant died of heart attack and heat stroke while carrying passengers around Angkor Wat, Cambodia [3]. In 2006 in Massachusetts, two men were putting children on an elephant’s back when the animal bumped them, breaking one man’s arm. In 2009 in Indiana, a frightened circus elephant knocked over a mobile stairway, injuring several children [4].
There are too many other stories of terror and tragedy to name. And none of them would have occurred had restrictions against riding elephants been in place. Thankfully, public opinion toward elephant rides is shifting, and governments are taking notice.
Public comments left on the travel review site TripAdvisor show how unpopular elephant ride attractions are becoming [5]. More and more organizations, and even countries, are banning the business as well. Botswana put an end to elephant rides near the end of 2016 [6], while several dozen tourism companies, including UI Nederland, Intrepid Travel, Apollo, Albatros Travel, and World Expeditions have stopped working with businesses that sell elephant rides and shows [7].
In January 2016, international travel agency Thomas Cook dropped elephant rides and shows from its entertainment options after over 175,000 people signed a petition calling for the change [8].
Some have taken a hardline stance against elephant rides, but the World Society of the Protection of Animals maintains that highly endangered Asian elephants and other elephant species face greater threats today because of the tourism industry’s promotion of these attractions. A demand for elephants means business for poachers [9], further endangering their survival.
Elephant exploitation is not concentrated in a single country, or even continent. Mistreatment of these animals has led to deaths in India, Thailand, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe, while more than half the animals were found to have suffered from abusive treatment and extreme restraint [10].
To let this cruel elephant exploitation continue in the United States is nothing more than privately sanctioned torture. End the suffering today. Sign the petition and save the elephants!