Southeast Asia Tourism Industry and Human-Wildlife Conflicts

It may be hard to hear, but everyday animals are being exploited in tourist industries around the world. Many people do not see the negative impacts of participating in these activities, or they are simply not educated enough to know that what they are doing is unethical. Exploiting any living creature for monetary gain is absolutely immoral, and I believe that this is a type of human-wildlife conflict.

All around the world, animals are being taken from their mothers, beaten, and trained to perform in shows, paint pictures to sell, or take pictures with tourists, to name a few. In Thailand, for example, tigers are taken from their mothers at a young age and drugged just so tourists can take pictures with them or perform in circus-like shows. A few tourists have been attacked by these tigers. People walk around busy tourist streets or beaches with baby gibbons, lemurs, and macaques charging money to take pictures with them. Many tourist “camps” offer elephant riding and trekking experiences to get up close and personal with the elephants. Elephants beg on the side of busy streets in Bangkok, walking on hot pavement without adequate food or water, so tourists can pay to feed them. These are examples I have seen firsthand, from my time in Thailand in 2016.

Thai Koon's foot

I went to Thailand to work at Elephant Nature Park in Chiang Mai as a veterinary intern. Here, I worked with many abused and neglected elephants, many coming from tourist or logging industries around Southeast Asia. Some had been blinded by street cars while begging in Bangkok, others stepped on landmines while logging and had been severely disfigured. I worked with one elephant twice a day every day I was there. Her name was Thai Koon, after the logging company she worked for. She had stepped on a landmine while she was very young, which disfigured her front left foot. As she grew up, her back and shoulder became deformed because of the way she had to walk and bear weight on her feet. Her foot has to be cleaned twice a day, everyday, to avoid infection. Many other elephants had been blinded by street car lights, or had their eyes struck by a bullhook, which damaged their eye beyond repair.

We occasionally left the sanctuary to give medical care to elephants working in tourist camps. One of the elephants was working at a
trekking/elephant riding camp, pictured below. She had many
deep cuts all over her body from branches encountered while trekking tourists through the jungle
and (presumably) bullhook wounds from her mahouts. When we would clean her wounds, she would bellow in pain, and put her head and trunk on the ground. She was chained up, with no 24/7 access to water. It was so devastating to me every time we went to help her that the tourists, riding a baby elephant just a few yards from us, didn’t seem to bat an eye at her painful bellowing. It’s hard for me to justify their ignorance when these people clearly saw what was going on.

Elephant from the trekking camp. (Blue/purple spray is an antibiotic spray)

As I traveled around Thailand after my internship, I saw many instances of the exploitation of wild animals. I was laying on a beach in Phuket when a man approached us with the most adorable baby Loris, asking us for 100 Baht per picture. In Bangkok, there were many advertisements for a Tiger “sanctuary” infamously known for drugging the tigers and having tourists pay for pictures. I was riding up a mountain in Cambodia and witnessed baby macaques dressed up and chained with a sign offering pictures in exchange for money. If only more people knew what these animals went through before the picture, maybe then they would stop supporting these industries.

Elephants go through a terrible experience known as “breaking the spirit”. This occurs before you ride them, buy their paintings, buy tickets to their shows, etc. It is extremely disturbing. They are tied up, beaten, not given food or water, and chained until they obey commands. Sometimes, babies are beaten in front of their tied up mothers in order to break the mother-child bond to make the baby more submissive. Here is a video someone made about their experience at Elephant Nature Park, which has more information about the ethics of elephant riding, as well as clips from a "breaking the spirit" session: Should You Ride An Elephant?. A lot of primates that are used for pictures are taken from their mothers at a very young age, and the mothers are killed. These are just a few examples of the brutality that some animals in tourism/working industries are treated. It’s important for everyone to do the ethical thing and not support these industries.

You may ask, how can you help? A few ways, are to do your research before doing ANY activity involving animals. A lot of places have online reviews, read through them carefully before deciding to give them your money. Use common sense before doing something. Think to yourself- should you ride an elephant? Should you take pictures with a tiger? Should I buy this painting an elephant or primate drew? Every time someone supports an unethical exploitation of wild animals, it is considered a conflict. The situations I have described throughout this article would never have happened if these animals were left alone in their natural environment. They would not have been beaten, taken from their mothers, and abused if not for human interference.

A lot of places offer “eco friendly tourism” and I highly recommend seeking these options out, as they typically help support conservation issues and preservation of the species. Here is a link to the Elephant Nature Park - they are an amazing foundation, my month there was a life changing experience, and the money goes to a great cause! Please choose to donate your time or money to these types of causes, and don’t support unethical tourism! Thank you for reading!