Shift in Culture
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With the need for domestic elephants becoming obsolete, the occupation of mahout or elephant handler, no longer commands the respect it once did. The profession, it's specialized knowledge, and the time-honoured relationship between man and animal are dying out. Children have little interest in learning the trade.
\n\nThe skill level of elephant-keeping and the ability to control bulls, is going down very, very rapidly.
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Unemployment
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The biggest problem facing domesticated elephants is unemployment. The situation is perhaps most dire in Thailand, where a ban on commersial logging in 1989 put several thousand elephants and mahouts out of work.
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An elephant typically eats about 200 kilograms of food a day, so unless you're a very wealthy person who likes to keep expensive pets, or indeed your elephant is actually working for you and generating some income, it's not easy to keep an elephant in captivity.
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Poorly-Skilled Mahouts
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Whilst one person can watch a whole herd of cattle or sheep, each elephant needs one person and sometimes two people to look after it. But with the decline in skilled mahouts, many elephants are now handled by inexperienced people.
\n\nThis leads to elephants that at best are poorly cared for and at worst severely abused. Mahouts are being harmed by elephants more often as well.
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Caring for privately owned domesticated Asian elephants often turns out to be the job of an impoverished mahout—or nobody's job at all.
\n\nElephants are now competing for fewer jobs at lower pay, which has forced mahouts to accept undesirable jobs or to overwork their animals. In Thailand, some owners have even started selling their elephants to be slaughtered for meat. Less than 10 years ago, such an act would have been unthinkable.
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\n\nHaving said that there are some incredible mahouts with a lifetime of knowledge and experience, this is what the industry needs more of! Learn more about mahoutship here.
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Lack of Protection
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Although well protected from international trade, Asian elephants have little protection under domestic laws. Generally, national wildlife agencies in Asia consider the domesticated elephant to be just another domestic animal (and allow their tusks to be sold), giving it the same legal rights as a cow or a goat; whilst livestock departments consider it wild and not under their jurisdiction. In Thailand captive elephants are on the Draught Animal Act 1939.
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Finally in late 2016 Thailand announced it will introduce a new DNA Registration System which will require each and every captive elephant in Thailand to be DNA registered by 3 months old; this will help discourage illegal trading for the tourist industry.
\n\nThis is a huge and important step to help safeguard wild elephants.
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The Tourism Industry
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Ecotourism is a booming market in Thailand and often it's the only viable solution for elephants. In addition to offering protection to some wild herds so that tourists can observe them in their natural habitat, ecotourism has given many domesticated elephants better work opportunities. The elephants that carry tourists safely on treks through the jungle are usually better cared for.
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But not all elephants are temperamentally suited for toting tourists—especially not the large, aggressive male elephants once valued by loggers.
\n\nUnfortunately, an increasing number of elephants are also being used in less benign forms of tourism. Performing in shows or serving as special attractions in hotels and tourist camps, they often suffer from lack of social contact with fellow elephants or risk injury doing dangerous and unnatural tricks.
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Begging The Streets
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Elephants can be found with their destitute mahouts begging for money in the streets of large Asian cities like Bangkok. These elephants suffer respiratory infections, damage property, and get hit by cars.
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Even though begging is illegal in Bangkok, throughout the day elephants are left in the back alleys feeding on trash to keep from the public eye. They then come out to roam the streets at night without their Mahout having fear of persecution.
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A major threat to wild Asian elephants is habitat loss and fragmentation. Throughout the tropics, humans have cleared large areas of forest and have rapidly populated river valleys and plains. Elephants have been pushed into hilly landscapes and less suitable remnants of forest, but even these less accessible habitats are being assaulted by poachers, loggers, and developers.
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Habitat Conflicts with Humans
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\nWhen elephants stray out of the forest into settled areas, they sometimes destroy property, trample crops and even kill people. Not infrequently farmers respond with gunfire or poison. In the face of rapidly growing human populations, the Asian elephants' habitat is shrinking fast and wild elephant populations are mostly small, isolated and unable to mingle as ancient migratory routes are cut off by human settlements.
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Ivory Poaching
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The international ivory trade has contributed far more to the decline of African elephants than Asian ones over the last few decades. Still, the people of Asia have a 500-year tradition of ivory carving and often hunt males for their tusks.
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Capture of Young Elephants
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Many young elephants are removed from the wild to supply tourist and entertainment industries. In the process, mothers and other females attempting to protect the young are killed. Many calves captured for such purposes are prematurely weaned, socially isolated or otherwise cruelly treated, and die before they reach age five.
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