Why are there elephants in the big cities?

Elephants are expensive to run and to keep, especially if you need to do it properly.  Many elephant owners resort to taking their charges into big cities in order to put themselves in touch with people who will pay to touch, feed or play with their elephant.

This is illegal in Thailand and the Thai Elephant Conservation Centre, amongst others, are fighting an up-hill battle to keep the eles out of the big cities.  But while there are racketeers making big bucks from elephant hire to do this, a large proportion of the 'city mahouts' I have met are from elephant owning families and can think of no other option.

Walking in cities is undoubtedly not the life for an elephant & the situation is made worse by the tendency to split mothers and babies well before natural weaning age - the baby will survive but have problems later in life through lack of calcium at the developmental stage - this is done for two reasons:

• A baby elephant is cute - the earning potential of a baby is higher than that of an adult.

• Babies are smaller, easier to transport and cost less to run (if you don't intend to do it properly).

The Anantara Elephant Foundation looks to rent these babies, offering their mahouts a very sweet deal to bring the elephant, young or old - but those in this predicament are primarily babies - to the camp at Anantara.

Why not just buy the elephants?  

It is important to bring the mahouts off the streets too.  For the most part have no concept that what they are doing is wrong (they know they are breaking the law but don't know why it's illegal), the temptation is to buy the baby outright for the over-the-top price quoted.  To do this puts the mahout back out on the street with enough money to buy another baby, perhaps two, and no knowledge of another way of life.

However, sometimes this is just not possible and in these cases we are prepared to buy the eles.