The Dirty Business of Thailand’s Elephant Tourism

By Mia Constantinescu

You’ve probably seen the pictures. One Pinterest search for Thailand inspiration and your feed will be flooded with elephants curled around bikini-clad girls, candid shots of laughter as the elephants cheekily spray them with water.

As any girl knows, a 6-week trip to Thailand definitely warrants a Pinterest board, and I will admit when I first saw these pictures – pictures which screamed ‘Nature lover!’ and ‘Look at the bond we have!’ – I did not consider the ethical implications of them. It was only when I saw first-hand the conditions these elephants are kept in that I began to uncover the dark reality behind some of Thailand’s most popular tourist attractions and photo ops.

World Animal Protection states, ‘Any elephant you can get close enough to touch, has been subjected to horrific abuse’, and I soon learned: only an abused and defeated elephant would allow tourists to ride them, feed them or bathe them.

Thailand is home to nearly 8,000 Asian elephants, but a staggering 4,000 of these live in captivity [1]. Formerly employed in the logging industry, elephants were used to drag heavy logs where machinery couldn’t reach. However, following a logging ban in 1989. elephants and their handlers – known as mahouts – were forced into unemployment. This gave rise to elephants as part of the tourism industry with new attractions founded such as elephant feeding, elephant bathing and elephant riding. This prompted a new, unprecedented demand for fastly tamed and trained elephants [2].

Drive 10 minutes outside of Phuket’s main tourist centre and you are sure to find a multitude of elephant tourism schemes such Feeding Baby Elephants or Elephant Trekking (Riding) Camps. The camps are almost always on the side of busy roads – to attract passer-byers – with elephants chained by their ankles to metal posts, barely having 2 metres to move.

The psychological effect of this environment is very evident in elephants: an undeniable fact is that, unlike wild elephants, elephants in captivity sway [3]. Repeated, meaningless motion such as swaying is known as ‘stereotypic behaviour’ and is a huge sign of depression and boredom in animals – essentially it is how they try to cope with their living conditions [4]. It’s notably demonstrated in zoos, with elephants often confiscated for exhibiting this behaviour – meaning they are living in inadequate conditions [5]. At one Elephant Riding Camp, I instantly observed that each of the 25 elephants there were swaying.

As part of my sleuthing, I wanted to see what tourists really thought of the conditions these animals were living in. Outside an Elephant Trekking Camp, I asked a middle aged couple what they thought of the experience, posing as a girl interested in giving it a go. After a glowing report, I lowered my voice, said I wanted to consider the ethics of these places, and posed the question: ‘Do you think they’re happy though?’ – knowing they looked neither happy nor healthy on account of the stereotypic behaviours they were exhibiting. However, the couple quickly said ‘No, they’re fine, they look healthy-’ and then added ‘– of course, they get chained at night, but it’s like putting a dog in a cage – you have to keep them somehow.’ I was in disbelief at hearing this, and shocked to have gotten the admission on tape, keeping a domestic animal (a pet) in a cage is not remotely close to keeping Earth’s largest terrestrial mammal chained up.

While the lady was told they are chained at night, in reality elephants at these riding camps are kept chained up all day too, often in the hot sun. Elephants struggle with thermoregulation [6] – that is, keeping themselves cool – and they are often kept in unshaded areas for hours on end. It is widely known that elephants are social animals with families and that they feel pain and sorrow, yet at these Elephant Riding Camps they are often not engaging with other elephants and spend their lives largely in solitary. This continues for years and years, with elephants at these camps working well into their 60s.

In places that offer Baby Elephant Feeding, the baby is separated from their mother. This is especially distressing when you understand that, in the wild, female baby elephants stay with their mothers their whole lives and that elephant calves spend 90% of their time within 5 metres of an older elephant, preferring close contact [7]. Growing up surrounded by older elephants is critical to a calf’s survival, with the formative years spent absorbing social cues and deepening decision making skills [8].

In addition to Elephant Riding and Feeding another popular tourist activity is Elephant Bathing. Elephant Bathing was originally proposed to be the next ethical thing – with campaigns condemning Elephant Trekking and promoting Bathing as helping to take care of the elephant.While elephants enjoy going in water, it is not aligned with their natural behaviour to have up to 40 people crowding them as they bathe. Often mahouts physically control elephants during these sessions using bullhooks – essentially a wooden post with a nail at the end – so they don’t move too suddenly, but even this does not ensure tourists safety. In 2025 a Spanish student lost her life bathing with elephants when a panicked elephant forcibly knocked her [9].

During my time in Thailand, I met with Vincent Gerards, manager of Phuket Elephant Sanctuary, an ethical and ‘hands-off’ approach to elephant tourism, to learn more about the lives of these animals in captivity. Vincent tells me that although these industries cause damage, the real harm comes from their upbringing in captivity, stating, ‘It is mostly the mental and physical abuse that you need to inflict to make the elephant obedient and engage in these activities – that’s what I think causes most of the harm.’

Obedience training for an elephant is a little bit different than for that of a dog. In Thailand, the procedure is known as ‘Phajaan’ and translates to ‘The Crush’ referencing the crushing of an elephant’s spirit. Life of an elephant in captivity, starts as a baby in the wild. In the 90s, elephant calves were taken from the wild directly from their mothers, between 2 to 4 years of age. Once taken, the babies were chained up, deprived of food and water and beaten for weeks on end.

When the spirit of the elephant was ‘crushed’, when it had no fight left, a mahout who wasn’t involved in the punishing acts as its saviour giving it food and water, thus gaining its trust. While it is less common to take baby elephants from the wild today, any elephant old enough to be working at these elephant bathing and riding camps were likely taken this way during the 90s and 2000s [11-12] .

It is the memory and fear of The Crush which keeps these elephants from ‘misbehaving’.Vincent tells me that this is when they then can train the elephants to do certain things, and while bullhooks may not always be used to hit the elephants, they serve as a reminder of what the elephant once endured.

At one facility I visited, the baby elephants were trained to give tourists hugs and kisses, Tourists ‘aw’ at this, thinking the baby elephant is kissing them out of affection, without realising they are trained to do this through awful means.

It really poses the question, how much pain is a photo truly worth?

It is all especially shocking when you understand the nature of elephants. Profoundly social, deeply empathetic and emotionally aware, elephants are known to grieve deeply for family members – trekking hundreds of kilometres to return to the bones of dead relatives, or carrying dead young for days and weeks, and nudging their bodies in an act of trying to ‘revive them’.

It has even been shown that if a baby elephant loses its mother before the age of 2, it likely will not survive with grief and distress considered the primary cause [13]. In addition to this, the part of the brain responsible for memory, the hippocampus, is extremely large and convoluted in elephants, meaning they remember it all for a very long time [14]. Elephants have even been known to recognise humans decades after encountering them [15] . This ability to grieve, combined with their exceptional memory, makes elephants extremely susceptible to experiencing PTSD and trauma [16]. Traumatic events such as a baby witnessing it’s mother be poached or killed significantly impacts them. Researchers have observed that elephants who have experienced trauma may display symptoms similar to those seen in humans with PTSD, including: being easily startled by noise and movement, being depressed and lethargic, being hyperaggressive and even having nightmares [17-18].

There is hope though, elephants rescued and raised in safe and caring environments surrounded by loving social companions have been shown to recover. Vincent also told me there is a new drive for ethical tourism and, as such, industries have begun to accommodate to this with more and more facilities reducing the contact they allow between elephants and tourists. Partaking in elephant activities such as riding, feeding and bathing encourages the unfair treatment of these profound and peaceful animals. While it can be difficult to discern ethical from unethical a good guide is questioning if the activity is aligned with their natural behaviour, and remembering: ‘Any elephant you can get close enough to touch, has been subjected to horrific abuse.’

You can learn more about the treatment of Thailand’s captive elephants by watching my documentary, ‘Thailand’s Elephant Tourism | The Shocking Truth’ here:

References

[1] Bansiddhi, P., Brown, J.L., Thitaram, C., 2020. Welfare Assessment and Activities of Captive Elephants in Thailand. Animals (Basel) 10, 919. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani10060919

[2] Baker, L., Winkler, R., 2020. Asian elephant rescue, rehabilitation and rewilding. Animal Sentience 5. https://doi.org/10.51291/2377-7478.1506

[3]Varadharajan, V., Krishnamoorthy, T., Nagarajan, B., 2016. Prevalence of stereotypies and its possible causes among captive Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) in Tamil Nadu, India. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 174, 137. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.APPLANIM.2015.10.006

[4] Mason, G., 2006. Stereotypic behaviour in captive animals: fundamentals and implications for welfare and beyond., in: Mason, G., Rushen, J. (Eds.), Stereotypic Animal Behaviour: Fundamentals and Applications to Welfare. CABI, UK, pp. 325–356. https://doi.org/10.1079/9780851990040.0325

[5] Greco, B.J., Meehan, C.L., Hogan, J.N., Leighty, K.A., Mellen, J., Mason, G.J., Mench, J.A., 2016. The Days and Nights of Zoo Elephants: Using Epidemiology to Better Understand Stereotypic Behavior of African Elephants (Loxodonta africana) and Asian Elephants (Elephas maximus) in North American Zoos. PLoS One 11, e0144276. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0144276

[6] Mole, M.A., Rodrigues DÁraujo, S., van Aarde, R.J., Mitchell, D., Fuller, A., 2016. Coping with heat: behavioural and physiological responses of savanna elephants in their natural habitat. Conserv Physiol 4, cow044. https://doi.org/10.1093/conphys/cow044

[7] Lee, P.C., Moss, C.J., 2012. Wild female African elephants (Loxodonta africana) exhibit personality traits of leadership and social integration. Journal of Comparative Psychology 126, 224–232. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0026566

[8] Shannon, G., Cordes, L.S., Slotow, R., Moss, C., McComb, K., 2022. Social Disruption Impairs Predatory Threat Assessment in African Elephants. Animals 12. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani12040495

[9] Thailand mahout charged after elephant kills tourist [WWW Document], 2025. URL: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cyv3dv7y96lo

[10] Bansiddhi, P., Brown, J.L., Thitaram, C., 2020. Welfare Assessment and Activities of Captive Elephants in Thailand. Animals (Basel) 10, 919. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani10060919

[11] Don’t get taken for a ride | World Animal Protection [WWW Document], n.d. URL: https://www.worldanimalprotection.ca/take-action/dont-get-taken-for-a-ride/

[12] Elephant crushing, 2025. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant_crushing

[13] Douglas-Hamilton, I., Bhalla, S., Wittemyer, G., Vollrath, F., 2006. Behavioural reactions of elephants towards a dying and deceased matriarch. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, Sentience in Animals 100, 87–102. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2006.04.014

[14] Patzke, N., Olaleye, O., Haagensen, M., Hof, P.R., Ihunwo, A.O., Manger, P.R., 2014. Organization and chemical neuroanatomy of the African elephant (Loxodonta africana) hippocampus. Brain Struct Funct 219, 1587–1601. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00429-013-0587-6

[15] Kränzlin, M., Azogu-Sepe, I., Pouydebat, E. and Böhmer, C. (2025), Do African Savanna Elephants (Loxodonta africana) Show Interspecific Social Long-Term Memory for Their Zoo Keepers?. Zoo Biology, 44: 3-15. https://doi.org/10.1002/zoo.21871

[16] Do elephants feel emotions and empathy? | World Animal Protection [WWW Document], n.d. URL https://www.worldanimalprotection.org/latest/blogs/elephants-emotions-and-empathy/

[17] Clinical Biology and Care of The Elephant [WWW Document], n.d. URL: https://www.fao.org/4/v9570e/v9570e03.htm

[18] Moussaieff Masson, J., 1996. When Elephants Weep | The Emotional Lives of Animals. Delta, Penguin Random House