Thomas Packham

Jackie Burr, Instructor

English 2010 Section 4

15 May 2019

Notebook #8

Most of my research this semester was focused on the elephant crisis in Thailand,

specifically the abuse of captive elephants. Almost every single source claimed that all elephants

used for tourism purposes has to go through extreme 'breaking of the spirit' in order to obey

commands and complete tasks. This process involves beating, isolating, and starving a baby

elephant until it is completely and utterly submissive to its captors. This practice is unnecessary

and must see an end. All sources claim that the end can only be reached through global

awareness and education on the issue.

I am not necessarily directly challenging this opinion because I do share this opinion to

an extent, but I believe that the level of abuse being spoken of is possibly being over

exaggerated. The source in specific that I am opposing is an article titled, “Elephant Tourism is

‘fuelling cruelty’”, written by BBC’s environment correspondent, Claire Marshall. Marshall

claims that any form of physical interaction with the elephants is unethical and bad for the

creatures. She claims that ¾ of Thailand’s elephants are treated with cruelty. I strongly believe

that there are many instances of abuse, and elephants deserve better treatment in general, but I

also believe that many reporters and advocates for elephants are making the issue seem worse

than it is currently. I believe that most elephant camps throughout Thailand have responded to

the public, and have started treating the elephants fairly. I first realized that some of the claims of
abuse might be exaggerated after I communicated with my friend Dani Lassiter, who has lived in

Thailand for two years. She claimed that the native people of Thailand really do honor and

respect the elephant, and that she has not personally seen any elephant abuse in any of the five

different elephant camps she has visited. She also told me something that got me thinking.

Lassiter said, “The natives in Thailand really do love their elephants, but it is very similar to how

us Americans treat our dogs. We love dogs, but we do punish them and train them. It is the same

way with the elephants in Thailand, but the public just responds very differently and immediately

calls it abuse”. This might bring up the argument that elephants are different than dogs and

deserve to be in the wild because they are wild animals. I agree that elephants do belong in the

wild, but at this point, there is nowhere left for the Asian Elephants to live in the wild. The only

way fo the species to thrive and stay away from extinction is through elephant sanctuaries which

are fuelled by tourists.

Today, the only way to keep elephants alive in Asia is through tourism. Of course some

of the mistreatment of elephants is inexcusable and needs to be stopped, but other than that, I

believe that the abuse is actually not as bad as many believe, and the situation could be much

worse.