Destinations known | Vietnam’s Dak Lak province is banning elephant rides, but more must be done to help shrinking population
- After a handler was killed and a tourist injured, the country’s Central Highlands province says it will end elephant-back tours
- Tourists should avoid any activities where they can interact with the animals
Awareness of elephant rights – or, rather, the wrongs suffered by elephants – is on the rise in Asia. Which isn’t saying much. According to conservation charity World Animal Protection (WAP), there are more than 3,000 pachyderms, including calves, being held captive at tourist attractions in the region, many of which are treated poorly for the sake of entertainment.
“The animals are beaten into submission when young and then forced to let travellers take rides on their backs and to perform confusing and sometimes painful tricks, including walking on tightropes, balancing on two legs on a small drum, painting pictures, and dancing,” says animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. And in a terribly 2020 twist of fate, because the pandemic has essentially halted mass travel within Asia, and the venues at which these elephants are kept are funded almost exclusively by visitors from further afield, these captive animals are going hungry.
But it hasn’t all been bad news. In Vietnam, where “the elephant population has experienced a precipitous decline over the past two decades and has reached perilous levels”, with an estimated 60 to 100 left in the wild and 38 “held in captivity for tourism”, according to animal charity Wild Welfare, authorities have called for an end to elephant-back tours of the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak.
The move has been prompted by “accidents and animal protection concerns”, reports English-language news site VnExpress International. In May, a mahout, or handler, was killed by a captive elephant in Dak Lak. Then, in July, a tourist fell during a tour and was injured.
Hong Kong-based charity Animals Asia reported that five elephants died from exhaustion due to overwork in Vietnam in 2015. According to VnExpress International, three captive elephants delivered stillborn calves in the past 30 years and only four calves have been born to the wild population of about 100 pachyderms, facts that Huynh Trung Luan, director of the Dak Lak Elephant Conservation Centre, blames on habitat loss, contamination of food and exploitation for tourism purposes.