TOURISM IN THAILAND, A HORROR FOR ELEPHANTS

Traveling to Thailand? Have a look at this...

If you or anyone you know is thinking about riding an elephant, attending a circus, a painting show, or visiting an elephant camp, PLEASE take a look at these photos and read the accompanying information.

You may think it'd be a fun experience, but it's NOT fun for these poor, overworked, young elephants.

Elephants in the ‪‎tourist industry‬ suffer unimaginable pain at the hands of their owners --- all for the sake of so-called entertainment.

As you'll see, they're pretty much all juveniles, and they were stolen from their mothers and herds in the wild in order to break their spirit and live a life of misery for money.
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This picture speaks for itself

Look at this BABY! What has she been through!? Starvation, deprivation and torture. 

All the whitish lines you can see are scars from the hook. The purple is iodine applied to heal the wounds

Standing motionless, afraid to move. Look at her eyes

She's just a baby, once wild and free, and now chained, being poked, and profoundly sad

Painting an abstract picture at a camp stating they support conservation doesn't mean the elephant is treated any differently if the painting isn't a flower or a tree. This mahout had a nail in his hand. There were puncture wounds and blood on this elephant too.

Why do we need to see elephants paint? Why why why? It is just MORE fun to watch them bathe in the river, play in the mud, walk in the forest, and learn about an elephants natural behaviour, instead of exploiting them.

ASIAN ELEPHANT-HAIR RINGS --- MORE TORTURE FOR ELEPHANTS!

via SAVE ELEPHANT FOUNDATION

Although considered hairless animals, elephants are born with thick hair. The hair on an elephant calf sheds as the calf grows. The hair is designed to allow elephants to sense the closeness of objects the hair touches rather than to provide warmth.
The tail of an elephant is the area with the thickest hair. Elephants use their tail as a fly swat against insect bites as well as to comfort themselves, pick up water to spread across their bodies to cool off when they swim and to touch each other and show their emotions to their friends and family. Hair is also visible on the head and back of an elephant. Eyelashes provide protection for elephant against unwanted bacteria particles that may cause infection.
Across Asia, people believe that to wear the ring made of elephant hair will bring good luck. The elephant ring has become famous to sell in Thailand’s markets and some elephant camps. Many elephants no longer have hair on their tail. In Thailand, one elephant hair ring costs around 400 Baht. If the ring is made from the eyelashes, the price rises as it is softer and can also be made into a bracelet. Many elephants have lost their tails to the greed of humans and the superstitions that drive them. When an elephant has no hair on their tail, it affects their ability to care for themselves in a natural way. The loss of eye lashes causes infections that may lead to blindness.
Please educate your friends and family to the truth behind the elephant ring. Their lives mean more than a souvenir, don’t support this torture trade.

"Gambling On Extinction 2015 Trailer"

https://vimeo.com/119005510

'Extinction is no longer a by-product of poaching it is the very purpose. There is a war against elephants and rhinos raging in the savannahs and jungles of Africa and Asia, where illegal trade in endangered animals is booming. It’s being waged by speculative investors, warlords funding their political conflicts and unbridled, thoughtless consumerism. The story is about greed, brutality and the merciless battle over a limited resource. The numbers are shocking. 30,000 elephants - one every 15 minutes - and over 1000 rhinos will die this year alone. As numbers go down the prices go up, making it a perverse futures market in extinction. At 20 Billion annually it’s the most lucrative business after drugs and weapons. At this pace elephants, rhinos and tigers living in the wild will be extinct in our lifetimes. The film takes the audience from the killing fields to the trading hubs, exposes the lethal mechanisms of the global trade, who the customers are, what generates demand, and what can be done to stop the slaughter.'

HORRIFIC VIDEO: 1000s OF AUSTRALIAN SHEEP SLAUGHTERED AFTER BEING BUNDLED IN CAR BOOTS

Animals Australia claim thousands of Australian sheep have been slaughtered privately after being bundled in car boots and driven from abattoirs in sweltering heat in the Middle East.

This is some of the footage they have provided us with, and a warning that it may be upsetting to some viewers.

Barnaby Joyce Member for New England says ‪#‎LiveExport trade is always monitored but one exporter is calling for tougher action.

‪#‎animalrights‬

A #liveexport firm's calling for tougher action in the sector following @AnimalsAus claims. See why on #abc730 https://t.co/8cQMfzClJw

— abc730 (@abc730) October 13, 2015

VIDEO: The Reunion of Elephant Mae Boonsri and Mebai

"The phrase “an elephant never forgets” rings true in all aspects of the animal’s life, including motherhood. A touching story from Thailand shows how the bonds of motherhood thrive in animals, even when mother and daughter do not share biological bonds."

CLICK HERE FOR THE WHOLE AMAZING STORY

DEATH OF BABY ELEPHANT MALI: via "FRIENDS OF WOODLAND PARK ZOO ELEPHANTS"

FULL STORY:

Malee, the 4 year old Asian elephant at the Oklahoma City Zoo died today likely of Elephant Endotheliotropic Herpes...

Posted by Friends of Woodland Park Zoo Elephants on Thursday, October 1, 2015

ELEPHANT VIDEO: RESCUE & JOURNEY OF ABUSED, LAME KABU,

"With a weeks worth of preparations and 2 days spent searching the jungle we were able to rescue Kabu the elephant. It was a 24 hour round trip to bring Kabu from Tak province in West Thailand to Elephant Nature Park, Chiang Mai. Now Kabu has a fresh start where she will no longer be abused. We and volunteers are very proud of this rescued elephant and honored to provide her with a new life."

FUN VIDEO: ELEPHANTS IN THE RAIN!

"Elephants star in this music video "Have You Ever Seen the Rain" filmed at Save Elephant Foundation's Elephant Nature Park in Chiang Mai, Thailand. All elephants featured in this film have lives free of work and enjoy just being elephants. For more information on the foundation and the park, please visit."

VIDEO: BABY ELEPHANT ESCORTS MAN TO A HERD OF BULL ELEPHANTS

Transcript by Care2 and Video by National Geographic

Investigative journalist Bryan Christy is working hard to expose the ivory trade and raise awareness about the plight of Africa’s elephants who are being slaughtered at a staggering rate for their ivory. It’s almost incomprehensible that these iconic animals could disappear from the landscape forever within our lifetime if drastic action isn’t taken to stop poachers.

Occasionally we get reminders about the urgency of this issue when we hear stories about the intelligence and socially complex nature of elephants, and get glimpses into their lives in the wild. This week National Geographic shared a short clip from its documentary series Explorer: Warlords of Ivory showing Christy on a trip to Kenya where he visited orphans at the Ithumba Release Camp in Kenya’s Tsavo East National Park. This is where orphans who are cared for by the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust begin their reintegration into the wild.

There, these orphans escort him to meet a herd of wild elephants who he admits can be extremely dangerous, adding that there’s a good chance he’d be seriously injured if he approached them on his own. With the baby elephants as his chaperones, however, he says he feels safe, adding, “They are protecting me, whether they know it or not.”



Christy said the experience “reestablishes my belief that these animals live in a society we barely understand. And I don’t have any greater right or lesser right to be on this planet, to have my community than these elephants do.” Unfortunately, not everyone sees elephants, or our place in the world, this way and poachers continue to threaten the future survival of these amazing animals. We continue to hear stories about the deaths of well-known and beloved individuals, entire families and, possibly most heartbreaking, more stories about orphans whose world’s are tragically changed forever by human greed.

Christy, meanwhile, is trying to crack the ivory trade. Recently he embarked on an effort to expose the criminals involved by tracking the exact route ivory is taking through Africa to its end destination by getting fake tusks embedded with a tracker into the market. His work will be featured as the cover story in the September issue of National Geographic. For more info about Christy’s work, check out Explorer: Warlords of Ivory. To learn more about how to help orphaned elephants and stop the ivory trade check out the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust and iworry.org.

VIDEO: NAP TIME AT "THE KANGAROO SANCTUARY" ALICE SPRINGS

Just a 1-Minute, Darling Video of an Orphaned Joey at Nap Time. If you don't have a Facebook account, I don't think the video will appear. I apologize. I HATE FB, but it's a must-have for Twitter activists.

Bedtime for Indi our baby kangaroo (joey).

Posted by The Kangaroo Sanctuary Alice Springs on Monday, September 7, 2015