We uncover the horrors of the Asian Elephants abuse industry, where beautiful animals are left dying in agony… and Brit tourists are to blame
Elephant calves are seized from their mothers and undergo sickening cruelty to be turned into photo opportunities for a £100million-a-year industry
BLEEDING from hacked-off tusks, skin festering with painful sores, Gajraj the elephant is dying in agony – and British tourists have unwittingly played a part in his torment.
The 63-year-old is kept in chains at an Indian temple as a visitor attraction.
And while guests from all over the world continue to demand selfies with these exotic animals, or clamber aboard their huge backs to ride through the jungle, elephants will continue to suffer.
Elephant-related tourism in Asia is a £100million-a-year industry and is based on seizing calves from their mothers and breaking their spirits with sickening cruelty before turning them into photo opportunities.
And according to experts, it is not just rogue operators who mistreat these beautiful animals.
Duncan McNair, CEO of charity Save The Asian Elephants, said: “Virtually any elephant that allows a tourist to ride it or performs in any way has gone through this process.
“It is easy for visitors to think the elephants ‘look fine’ but they don’t understand what the animals have been through.”
The details of this process of seizing and “training”, which is called “pajan”, are heart-breaking.
MOST READ IN REAL LIFE
First of all, babies snatched in the wild often see their mother shot dead in front of them, along with any other adult elephants from the herd who try to step in.
It is estimated that for every one baby elephant snatched, seven or eight adults are ruthlessly shot.
The terrified baby is then carted away to a “crushing cage” — a tiny prison barely big enough for them to fit into. Here the baby is severely starved, dehydrated and kept awake for days with loud, scary noises.
Next, they are beaten with hammers and clubs and stabbed with rods tipped with metal spikes.
Nearly 50 per cent of elephants die from the abuse. Of the rest, another ten per cent die of heart failure within 12 months due to stress.
Those who make it beyond this are destined to suffer a lifetime of fear.
By day they ferry tourists on their backs or perform in shows. These are popular with many of the 800,000 Brits who visit India each year and the 880,000 who head to Thailand, as well as travellers to Sri Lanka, Bali and China.
By night, these elephants are once more tortured and chained. This goes on for decades — as in the case with poor Gajraj, who has been kept in his chains as an attraction at a temple in Satara in western India for more than 50 YEARS.
The Sun exclusively revealed his plight last week, prompting a global outcry and even a call by Bollywood star Jacqueline Fernandez, 31, for the dying animal to be rehomed.
But there are thousands of other elephants across Asia suffering the same nightmare existence.
There are now thought to be only 40,000 Asian elephants left — down from millions a few centuries ago — with one quarter of these in captivity.
These creatures are almost always being used and abused for profit for the entertainment of oblivious, snap-happy tourists.
Campaigner Mr McNair said: “The way the elephants are captured and kept for the sake of Western tourism is outrageous.
"Companies and individuals make millions selling tickets to see elephants who have suffered the most unthinkable levels of abuse.
“I have seen with my own eyes young elephants stabbed with wooden sticks with metal spikes on the end, screaming out in pain.
“The owners beat them senseless to assert authority over the animals.
“If we don’t raise public awareness and force our politicians to help companies to change, the Asian elephant will be no more.”
Currently the incentive to capture an elephant in the wild to use as a money-making machine is huge. They can make their owners up to £5,000 an hour at Indian festivals.
Tour companies charge Westerners an average of £45 for a brief ride and a few snaps with their elephants — roughly two weeks’ wages for the average Indian employee.
Mr McNair said looking more closely at the elephants can reveal their agony.
He explained: “The psychological torment can be seen in the swaying of their heads and their depleted appearance.
“It’s so troubling to see reviews left by tourists describing the attractions as ‘nice places where the elephants seem happy’, when just round the corner young elephants are being horrendously abused. Most tourists simply have no idea.”
In a bid to put an end to the desperate situation, his charity Save The Asian Elephants has called for action from the UK Government.
It is seeking to make it unlawful to advertise or sell tickets in the UK to any facilities involving Asian elephants abroad, unless they can prove no abuse has taken place.
The group believes this would significantly reduce the number of tourists visiting these “attractions”.
Mr McNair said: “We ask Mrs May to honour the election pledge the Conservative Party made in April 2015.
"They pledged that the British Government would work with the Indian government to stop the abuse — a pledge that so far remains to be honoured.”
Last October the world’s biggest travel website, Tripadvisor, dropped all advertising of tickets to facilities offering elephant rides.
The ban also extends to advertising for other animal attractions in which tourists come into contact with captive wild animals or endangered species, anywhere in the world.
However, many UK websites still advertise and sell tickets to these types of attractions.
And that is dangerous not just to the elephants but to travellers too.
In February last year, tourist Gareth Crowe, 36, from Linwood, Renfrewshire, was trampled and gored to death by a bull elephant he had been riding on a jungle trek in Koh Samui, Thailand.
It apparently threw him to the ground after being “taunted” by its handler.
Mr McNair said: “This is yet another example of an animal being driven mad by abuse.
“The elephant was reportedly tortured all night. Locals said the screams rang out across the village for hours.
“The very next day he was put back in with tourists. This is how little some tour companies care for the safety of tourists.
“This disturbing cycle of animal abuse is happening now.
“It’s happening where we go on holiday, it’s happening minutes from our hotel pools and our beach towels and it must be stopped, now.”
- For more information on how you can help save the elephants, visit .
BIG HEART AND SOUL
THE intelligence and rich emotional life of elephants are almost as legendary as their memories.
They form very close bonds and have been recorded showing heart-breaking signs of distress when a friend is in pain or has died.
When a herd member is injured they seem to “care” for them, refusing to leave their side even if it puts themselves in danger. This is one of the reasons so many elephants die when hunters capture a calf – they step in to try to save the baby even if they are being shot at themselves.
They also work together to help a calf in distress if necessary – such as coming together to push or pull a baby stuck in the mud.
There have even been reports of elephants stepping in to save a baby rhino from mud – despite the rhino’s mother attacking them. And last year in Thailand a young female elephant went into a raging river to gently nudge a man who she thought was in danger to safety.
The man was a charity worker who had rescued the five-year-old from cruel treatment. The species is also very social, often seen touching and caressing one another to communicate and show affection.
When bonds are particularly strong, they even lovingly entwine their trunks. Meanwhile elephant calves suck on their trunks when they are young to comfort themselves – just like human babies suck their thumbs.
And also like people, elephants reckon ants ruin a good picnic. Studies have shown that in Africa they avoid eating acacia trees because they know stringing ants live on their branches.