Animals to people riding them: 'Get off my back!'

Lucy the elephant, of Margate, NJ, whose ears suggest she's an Asian elephant.  On her back is a relatively simple howdah, in which hunters, travelers and tourists make themselves comfortable.  

Objection to people riding elephants is more widespread than I had hoped!  No sooner did I post the article about Thailand’s "unemployed" elephants last time than I came across a thoroughly right-on article about the many animal abuses involved in tourism – including that very thing.

The story headline read, “Animal rides are cruel, advocates say. So why are we still doing them?”  And the subhead suggested a slow start toward reform: “Outrage over the unethical treatment of elephants, camels and horses is forcing attractions to consider alternate modes of transportation.”

One pitiful example of what happens to animals forced to give rides to people: photos of an Asian elephant in Thailand whose back “slopes down like a ramp, from visitors crushing her spine.”  Although that 70-something pachyderm is now retired, countless other elephants and beasts of burden around the world suffer the same fate.

(Years ago, feminist icon Gloria Steinem celebrated a birthday by riding an elephant during a trip to Asia.  That ride cost her at least one admirer I know very well.) 

Really, this story’s headline and subhead tell the story, but reading the entire thing and seeing the horrifying images with it give an excellent overview of the issue and this advice: “To ethically engage with animals, observe without touching.”      https://tinyurl.com/3c5cy5k6   

Donkeys: valued for heavy labor

It’s a dubious distinction for donkeys to be described as “humanity’s first beasts of burden,” yet once they were domesticated, around 5,000 BC, donkeys became major contributors in the developing world’s heavy-duty work. 

 Even though horses – their close cousins -- weren’t harnessed for 2 more millennia -- they nonetheless upstaged donkeys in attention but not laborious work.  Because donkeys are highly drought-resistant and able to tolerate water deprivation, they have remained in demand.

Last year’s study of donkeys’ family tree happened to be accompanied by the film Eo, starring a “soulful, barbarously misused donkey.”  (I welled up seeing that movie, and wholly agree.)

And it gets worse: now, except in developing countries where donkeys are still associated with the poor and with women more than men, they are sought after for their skins.  Boiled down, skins become ejiao, a gelatin used mostly in traditional Chinese medicine – a wasteful crime against a good, long-serving animal.  (And there again, the “traditional Chinese medicine” phrase signals nothing good, as pointed out in an earlier post here.)  

(A clarification: Mules are not the same as donkeys, but rather the sterile offspring of male donkeys, or jacks, and horse mares.)         https://tinyurl.com/58a9pt4s

                                                       A long-time sad sign 

Around Mercer County since January 15, a distinctive sign has been posted on windows and doors, poles and posts.  Its attention-getting message reads, “LOST DOG / Lawrence Twp / Village Park/ (609 phone number).”  Some versions include a picture of a beagle.

The caution “Do not chase” runs down each side, while a message across the bottom says, “Flyers willbe removed when no longer needed.”  I still see the sign around, so after 3 months, that poor, dear, loved dog must still be missing.  I can only hope s/he was found but the parent neglected to remove a few signs.

If it wouldn’t raise false hopes, I'd phone and ask.  If I hear from anyone who knows this story’s ending, I’ll happily report here.          

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                                Coming up: blogger's time off for reflection.  Back next month.                    

Thailand elephants, moms sharing & reformed circus

Recent media articles about animals have included one sad story about Asian elephants in Thailand and one idiotic story (the kindest way to describe it) about another Asian elephant . . . and a heartwarming story about inter-species kindness involving two moms with infants – one, an orangutan and the other, a human.

I’ll build up to the good news . . . !

In my reading, Asian elephants get much less coverage than African elephants, and their lives appear to be much less “wild animal” than working animal.  What a shame.

In parts of Thailand, for instance, their main activity seems to be carting tourists around -- a pathetic come-down for such intelligent and majestic creatures.  Adding insult to injury, more elephants there (an est. 3,800 of them) are “privately owned” captive workers than elephants who live in the wild (est. 3,600).  Still worse, owned elephants and their offspring are passed down through family generations, for servitude forever.

Picture this: outside the houses in a small village, one or more elephants are chained up, much as cars are seen outside homes here.  It fits: those elephants are used as wage-earning vehicles. . . for tourists.

Except that now, the country’s tourism industry has not yet rebounded from the pandemic so elephants are out of work, while still needing to be fed and cared for. Returned to their owners’ villages from resort areas where they gave rides, the elephants are now idle – and hungry, according to the newspaper story linked below.

This state of things has fed the already-ongoing debate about proper treatment of elephants here.  Although owners are struggling to feed them, supplemented by government help, they’re also skeptical about selling their elephants to others,  who may not treat them well.  At the same time the elephants are living in even more undesirable conditions than serving as live tourist rides. 

A natural habitat for elephants already exists, but because villagers have become so dependent on “their” animals, activists’ arguments have not gained support.  Yet.             

https://tinyurl.com/wcame5r  &   https://tinyurl.com/46hkbe8f     

Too tiny a triumph

I’m as much a fan of happy media stories about animals as the next animal advocate.  But . . . the big to-do about the Berlin Zoo elephant who can peel her own bananas: come on!  Whoever marvels at that must have no idea of just how intelligent elephants are and have been, for millennia.

If that’s the greatest thing this elephant has been extolled for doing, it just means she’s been sorely underutilized – starting with being held captive in a zoo cage.  I wonder whether those who herald this feat can peel their own                                                                                                              bananas.              

https://tinyurl.com/2m69xaby

Moms share how-to’s   

Finally, and best: the story about mom-to-mom kindness at the Metro Richmond Zoo.  There, after an orangutan gave birth, she didn’t know how to nurse her baby and zoo staff feared Zoey’s second baby would also need to be hand-raised by them instead of starting life au natural.

But a staff member who had recently given birth agreed with a request to bring her own baby in and demonstrate to Zoey how to nurse.  She sat outside Zoey’s cage, bared her breast and fed her son – sometimes talking and often pointing to what happened where.  The other mom watched carefully, and soon afterward, began nursing her own baby.           https://tinyurl.com/dups6mvd  

New-style circus on tap

The headline and first sentence say it all: “Ringling circus is returning.  Lions, tigers and Dumbo are not.  Shuttered since 2017, Ringling Brothers will bring back its circus in September 2023, but this time there will be no animal acts.”

The myriad animal activists who protested for so long against demeaning animal acts and cruel training, transport and living conditions for animals can rejoice – and move on to other animal-welfare issues.    https://tinyurl.com/meumnsk8 

 

                                                                                   image: Philadelphia Museum of Art

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