Help stop elephants being chained, beaten, abused and made to perform for tourists.
Elephants
Help stop elephants being chained, beaten, abused and made to perform for tourists
In holiday hotspots, thousands of elephants are being tormented, trained and exploited, all to entertain tourists for money. They’re forced to perform tricks, carry holidaymakers on their backs, or let people touch, wash and pose with them.
These wild animals should be living free in their natural habitat. But instead, baby elephants are torn from their mothers, chained up, put through a brutal training process and forced to endure a lifetime of misery as entertainers.
It’s an outrage that elephants are treated this way. But all too often, tourists simply don’t realise. They go on elephant rides or visit elephant attractions to see animals they love up close, and don’t see the brutal reality behind the scenes.
Together, we can end elephant abuse forever. By exposing the grim reality of elephant tourism and working with venue owners, travel companies and governments, we can give elephants happier, healthier lives.
Elephants need your help
Will you donate now to help end the abuse and support elephant-friendly tourism?
Donate nowElephants in the wild
As the world’s largest land-based mammal, elephants can grow up to six metres long and weigh up to 5,000kg.
These huge creatures need space and freedom to thrive. In the wild, elephants travel long distances and spend 12-18 hours a day eating grasses, bark, roots, leaves and stems. They bathe often in water, mud and dust.
Elephants are intelligent, sensitive animals that need the company of others. In their natural habitat, they form close-knit groups with complex social structures, and can live for 70 years.
A life in captivity can never fully meet an elephant’s needs. And all too often, they’re treated appallingly. Elephants are tied up on concrete floors, fed poor diets and given no opportunity to do things they naturally would in the wild.
They spend their lives alone, doing stressful and strenuous work, and tend to die much younger.
A lifetime of pain and suffering
Elephants are wild animals with wild instincts. It just isn’t possible to train them in a humane way to cope with the stress of performing for tourists.
Elephants in the tourist trade are forced to endure a horrific training process. Known as ‘the crush’, it’s designed to destroy elephants’ wild spirits so that holidaymakers can touch, wash or ride them without being harmed.
Young elephants are ripped from their mothers, tied up alone, starved and beaten, sometimes for weeks, until they’re terrified into submission. They then spend the rest of their lives in chains, being controlled by poles with sharp hooks.
The constant cruelty elephants suffer causes them immense suffering and trauma.
How to support elephant-friendly tourism
Owners often make claims about their welfare policies. But in reality, venues calling themselves ‘elephant sanctuaries’, ‘rescue centres’ or ‘retirement homes’ may still subject elephants to pain and abuse.
If you want to visit a genuinely elephant-friendly attraction on holiday, research them online first to check their approach to animal welfare.
Look for venues that put elephants’ needs first by:
- giving them space to move and behave naturally
- allowing people to look at them, but not touch
Avoid venues where:
- you can ride, wash, bathe with or hug an elephant
- people routinely use sharp hooks to control elephants
- baby elephants are on show, especially without their mothers, unless it’s a genuine elephant orphanage with a rewilding programme
A quick guide to elephant-friendly tourism
Right now, thousands of elephants around the world are suffering in the name of tourism - but it doesn’t have to be this way.
Read the guideWhat we're doing to end the abuse
World Animal Protection is working with governments, travel companies and venue owners to support elephant-friendly tourism.
Our approach includes:
- Helping tourists understand how harmful activities such as elephant rides, shows and washing can be
- Developing higher welfare venues and supporting elephant sanctuaries where visitors can look but not touch
- Improving conditions for elephants that are not in elephant-friendly venues
- Supporting people whose livelihoods are dependent on elephants to find alternative sources of income as elephant attractions are phased out
- Making sure strong animal welfare laws and a loophole-free registration process for captive elephants are enforced, so that no more wild elephants are used for entertainment
We’ve shown that observation-only elephant venues can be successful by helping two elephant camps in Thailand transform into high welfare venues.
And when tourism stopped during the COVID-19 pandemic, we helped genuine sanctuaries and high welfare venues feed and care for their elephants.
We’re determined to end elephant abuse and make sure captive elephants’ lives are worth living.
Find out more about our work with elephants:
Elephants are not entertainers
The reality of elephant tourism
Want to see elephants on holiday? You’re not alone. But did you know that captive elephants, like many other wild animals around the world are facing a lifetime of suffering, just to entertain tourists?
Find out more
Elephant-friendly tourist guide
Use our guide to find the right venue for you and for elephants
Right now, thousands of elephants around the world are suffering in the name of tourism. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Find out more