Elephant rides a clear and present danger to tourists
Another tourist is killed while riding an elephant in Thailand but this has not stopped Malaysia from giving the go-head for such rides here.
From: Sean Whyte via e-mail
Last week a tourist was killed by an elephant he was riding in Thailand – an increasingly common occurrence.
Despite frequent advice from ourselves (Nature Alert) the government of Malaysia continues, inexplicably, to permit zoos and wildlife parks (the two are the same thing, just different names used for marketing purposes) to use elephants for commercial exploitation.
The most blatant example of this being the A’Famosa Wild Animal Park – or should we call it an entertainment complex or even a golf resort with wild animals displayed for the sole purpose of making money?
A’Famosa is not a conservation or education centre. Neither is it a breeding centre. It is a commercial enterprise.
If the owner and management of A’Famosa cared about the welfare of its elephants and the safety of its visitors, all contact with elephants would stop now. It’s not as if selling rides on elephants makes a lot of money; it clearly does not. It’s really nothing less than abusing, some might say torturing, elephants to try and attract more customers to the park; in other words, a shameful, cruel, marketing gimmick.
Perhilitan’s long and equally shameful history of turning a blind eye and deaf ear to calls to ban elephant rides, is equally matched by silence from the Malaysian Association of Zoological Parks and Aquaria (Mazpa), of which A’Famosa is a member.
Mazpa clearly knows of the cruelty involved to the elephants and the serious safety risks to visitors – children included.
Not if, but when, there is a serious incident involving an elephant and a tourist in Malaysia, no one in government, no one in Perhilitan and no one in Mazpa will ever be able to say they were not warned, repeatedly, of the risks involved. We should blame them all – not the long suffering elephants.
All concerned have a duty of care towards both captive elephants and the public, don’t they?
Sean Whyte is CEO of Nature Alert.
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