Australia Zoo Riding elephants

So why is it completely appropriate and proper to ride elephants in India or Thailand, but supposedly horribly demeaning to the dignity of the species in Australia?
That's political correctness run riot.

My childhood elephant rides gave me nothing but a sense of strong affection and even awe for the animals.

Maybe we should not allow the riding of horses either - after all, they didn't evolve to be ridden by humans either!
 
The original horses weren't meant for human riding that's for sure! The standard bred is used these days for cart pulling races. And the current throughbred was made from 3 breeds of horses. ( The godolphin is one of them)

The thing about Thailand and India though is that in the first intial place they weren't used for entertainment. The first use of elephants was a battle animal. Horses being the first, the elephant was something like a living tank. Then of course people had to ride on top of the elephants.
From then the use of logging, transport etc. and now tourism once that people in Thailand and India realised that the rest of the world adores these animals.
 
fair point ara.

i've ridden elephants in asia and always passed on the offer in zoos. there are a number reasons for this such as....

i've only ever ridden elephants in asia as a means of viewing wildlife and the idea of a ride on an elephant around a zoo doesn't interest me one bit.

elephants can be EXTREMELY DANGEROUS!!! - i personally trust the temperament of elephants used for safari's in national parks in asia much more than i trust those at say - the singapore zoo, who are quite aggressively forced to perform daily shows and are far more likely to be bored or frustrated and thus throw a potentially devastating tantrum!

anyhow that my personal opinion. elephants that have heavily restricted lifestyles such as those in circus' and urban zoos are not animals i am particularly likely to trust. they are smart animals and sooner or later odds are one of them is always going to crack the shits. we read about it in papers around the world all the time.

i don't want to be on the receiving end of that!
 
well said, don't tick an elephant off!
They have great size and weapons and they know how to use them!
 
I guess most Indian and Thai mahouts would be very happy to go to Australia or Europe with their elephant. If somebody sponsored the transport. ;)

Lots of elephants in Asia are now unemployed, with mahouts trying to make ends meet. I saw films that many people are really desperate, burdened by their elephant which has no means to support.

Anyway, elephant rides were common worldwide just 30 years ago. Would be nice to see them back. Maybe it's the victim of overblown safety regulations?

Good point about horse riding. Lots of people are kicked or fall from horses. But riding a horse is considered a good thing for a young girl to do.
 
hmmmm, shame that in Thailand that the half of the elephants there are domesticated, which gives them no national protection, they have the same roghts as cattle. They could be simply Traded for meat if the oppurtunity came up!:mad:

Fortunately the wild half is fully protected and killing a wild elephant will cause some punishment towards the person who did it.
 
tetrapod said:
When Taronga were starting to plan for the new elephant enclosure, there was mention of elephant rides coming back. The 'thought' (possibly PR machine, rather than animal dept) was that the older generation remembered fondly of riding elephants when they visited the zoo, so why deny this generation. Madness.
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As has been already pointed out, the argument was that as this species is traditionally ridden in Asia, using the elephants for rides around the zoo would be in keeping with the traditional uses of the animal. This was back in the early days before the kafuffle erupted when trying to import them. And I'm pretty sure the insurance side of it killed the idea.

It was also suggested the elephants could be worked (as a form of daily enrichment) - have a pile of logs at one side of the zoo and each day take the elephants out to the log pile, have them pick up a log each and then carry it across to the other side of the zoo. Once the logpile had been moved across the zoo, the elephants could move it back again.

And the final idea came from the CEO himself. He had found some old black and white (news) footage taken in the 40's or 50's. At that time the elephants were walked out of the zoo down to Whiting Beach where they could bathe in Sydney Harbour. The curent CEO wanted to do this again as he thought it would be great publicity for the zoo if it was a daily event. He showed the film and announced his intentions at one of his quarterly addresses to the staff, and seemed surprised at the opposition staff showed to it. Actually, the most vocal opponents were the Horticulture staff who had spent years regenerating the bush below the zoo grounds. I think that idea was dead before we left the room!

:p

Hix
 
Wow. Both the beach idea and the log one seem great. Though, I wonder, could the elephants be trained to do the logs on their own? As it would mean having keepers in their the whole time, which would become costly... even if it was say, an hour a day. Something like that would be awesome at Melbourne Zoo. Their elephants have been bored or upset every time I've gone their. Kind of sad...
 
I guess you haven't been to Taronga. They have a team of dedicated elephant keepers who are in the enclosure with the elephants several times a day. If they were able to take the elephants log moving, it wouldn't cost any more from a staffing point of view. Once again, I think it may have been an insurance thing.

And there's also a couple of other things to consider:
1. An elephant can destroy a tree in seconds - always a consideration in a well planted zoo.
2. Some zoo animals may freak out if they've never seen an elephant before (of course, it could be very stimulating to many animals too.)

:p

Hix
 
I think Mr Cooper was on to something with the beach. That would be an awesome sight. (similar to the pinnewala orphanage elephants in sri lanka, it is amazing).

I have seen photos of a number of circuses doing this with their elephants and recently saw footage of stardust walking their lions on the beach. very enriching I imagine.
 
I think Hix was right in saying that the insurance side of things killed the idea. Shame as I agree with Ara, I've never ridden an elephant but when I ride a horse or camel I feel a lot of respect and admiration for the animal in the fact that it could throw me off and possibly kill me in a second! I also imagine that horses might spook more easily than elephants, so the risk is not really that much greater than riding a horse, as in it's not more likely to try and throw you just because it's an elephant.
 
One of the reasons why taking the elephants to the beach was a bad idea was their waste. Elephants produce a lot of crap every day, and when they empty their bladder it's like turning on a fire hose. Taronga's Horticulture Dept (which, essentially, no longer exists) had spent years clearing Lantana and revegetating the bush below the zoo around the harbour foreshore. All that liquid nitrogen would be very bad for the native plants and would disrupt the whole ecology of the area. And if the elephants crapped while in the water ..... well, lets just say the local residents at nearby beaches wouldn't be happy about elephant-sized turds floating past while they and their kids were swimming.

Yes, seeing four or five elephants (or even one) playing in the water at the beach would have looked fantastic, especially if you were heading to the zoo by ferry. However, as the elephants were to spread a conservation message - destroying native habitat to publicise that conservation message would be defeating the whole purpose.

:p

Hix
 
yes, I guess the insurance and waste could be a problem.. and regarding the staffing, I still standby that they'd need more staff. OR, they'd have to cut back on OTHER activities.. think about it, if they are in there already for x hours a day, and the other hours doing OTHER things, then how will they find MORE time to do the log show? It'd mean cutting down, cramming, or getting another member to spread the load.
 
In my opinion, elephant rides are a bad idea both in western zoos and in Asia/Africa - elephants are elephants, and can be dangerous everywhere. People (mahouts, tourists and people who were "just at the wrong place in the wrong moment") are killed and injured by elephants in Asia every week. Just no one talks about it unless western tourists are involved. In my opinion, western zoos should keep elephants in protected contact, and with that, rides, walks and shows are automatically "out". Taronga needs the walks because their enclosure is so small, but that`s a very bad reason. Give them plenty of space and develop a good enrichment program, and the elephants will walk enough without being taken out of their enclosure.
 
m575 said:
yes, I guess the insurance and waste could be a problem.. and regarding the staffing, I still standby that they'd need more staff. OR, they'd have to cut back on OTHER activities.. think about it, if they are in there already for x hours a day, and the other hours doing OTHER things, then how will they find MORE time to do the log show? It'd mean cutting down, cramming, or getting another member to spread the load.
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I don't think extra staff would be necessary, they would just remove something from the day, maybe something that is less enriching. therefore staff would not be spending any more time than they currently do with the elephants. But there are a lot of risks involved from an insurer's point of view.
 
m575 said:
I still standby that they'd need more staff. OR, they'd have to cut back on OTHER activities.. think about it, if they are in there already for x hours a day, and the other hours doing OTHER things, then how will they find MORE time to do the log show?
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The keepers currently provide enrichment in the enclosure at different times of the day - they interact with the animals in a show-like atmosphere. If they were going to do a log show, they'd do that instead of one of the other shows.

:p

Hix
 
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