- (sighs) Jesus.
We came behind the stadium
where the elephants perform
and we found this juvenile elephant.
He had gaping red wounds at his temple.
He also has a broken leg.
The other one is chained up.
He looks totally emaciated.
Skin and bones.
And this is the worst shape I've seen
an elephant in in Thailand.
(mellow music)
All in the name of entertainment.
(mellow music)
(crowd cheering)
(intense orchestral music)
Wildlife tourism is a massive industry
accounting for 10-20% of
the global tourism industry.
People go on vacation and
pay money to either view
or interact with animals.
I don't think we can ignore the role
that social media plays.
The sheer number of people now
not only posting their travel
experiences, but consuming
others' travel experiences
means that these things
are spread in an instant
with the click of a button.
But the issue with wildlife tourism
is most people have absolutely no idea
of what goes on behind the scenes.
(crowd chattering)
I reported this story on wildlife tourism
with photographer Kirsten Luce for a year.
And we set out knowing that
we really had to sort of
narrow our focus and
go to kind of hot spots
around the world where this
industry is a massive part
of the local economy.
But there was nothing that prepared me
for what I actually saw in the field.
Especially when we went to Thailand.
(mellow woodwind music)
(tires scraping against road)
(cage clanging)
This is a place that puts on monkey shows
and as you can see behind me,
this monkey is in a small metal cage
and you can see he's jumping over and over
and this is called zoochosis
and animals that are kept in captivity
do this when they're in
psychological distress.
(cage clanging)
(woodwind music)
I'm here at a zoo on the top floor
of a shopping mall in Bangkok.
This kind of place, animals
are living in conditions
that no living being should be living in.
The only gorilla in Thailand
is apparently in this zoo.
The gorilla was reaching
its hand through the cage
onto a puddle on the concrete floor
scooping up fingerfuls of water.
It seemed to be the only way
this gorilla could access water.
(somber music)
We just finished watching
the crocodile show
which was pretty
disturbing and consisted of
two trainers dragging crocodiles
around by their tails,
smacking them on the head with sticks,
and then everyone would laugh.
It was like all designed
as a comedy routine.
On most people's bucket
lists for going to Thailand,
you're gonna want to see an elephant.
So we went to dozens
of elephant experiences
all over Thailand.
Mahouts, trainers that
care for their elephants,
used their bull hooks on the
elephants to get them to pose
to allow tourists to
take photos with them.
A bull hook is a stick and at
the end of the wooden stick
is a metal prong or hook.
And this is the instrument
used to control an elephant.
(crowd chattering)
I'm here at Maetaman
Elephant Camp in Chiang Mai.
(elephant trumpeting)
I think the most shocking thing
was during the actual show.
Some of the bull hooks
had nails on the end.
I witnessed a couple of
mahouts that had nails
in their hands and they were poking
behind the elephant's ear to get them
to perform and do the painting.
(crowd chattering)
A young elephant named Meena,
she's four years old and
she performed in the show.
She painted a picture.
So she did have a nail in her ear.
And after the show we walked over to
where she was being kept.
(broom scraping against ground)
There was a chain around her
leg that had spikes in it.
The spikes were all the way
around, pressing into her skin.
She was kind of hovering it in the air,
because obviously it
hurt to put weight on it
and I asked her mahout why and he said
it's because she likes to kick.
Her mahout said that he puts
it on for a little while
to teach her and then he
takes it off at night.
I decided that I wanted to come back later
to see if she actually
was on a different chain.
With permission of the facility
we ended up coming back six hours later
and I feel like before I
got to her I just knew.
(rain hitting structure)
It's about 7:30 PM and you
can see it's getting dark
and it's pouring rain.
Meena has had a spiked
chain around her ankle
since we last left her and her mahout,
he told us that at night he removes it.
But he hasn't and it was a lie.
So I don't know how she's gonna sleep
and it's really, really
upsetting to watch.
It was the first time I
sort of witnessed deception
that sort of runs through this industry
and I wanted to see for myself
where these animals are born,
how they're trained, the
economics behind this industry.
And if you wanna go to
ground zero basically
of the elephant industry in Thailand,
you have to go to Ban Ta Klang.
(mellow music)
There are 3,500 captive
elephants in the country
and half of them are actually
sourced to Ban Ta Klang.
It's a place where
elephants are bred, trained,
and then when they are ready,
they're sold down south to
camps around the country.
(mellow music)
The Thai government
actually offers a subsidy
to mahouts who care for elephants there.
The elephant tourism industry
is a massive source of income
for the country so they actively fund it,
ensuring that the elephant
entertainment industry
is healthy and that there
are always new babies
being funneled in and that it is thriving.
(motorcycle engine revving)
Most people in the town are mahouts,
meaning they work with
elephants for a living.
A young man was happy to be honest with me
about how they train their elephants
and what tourists don't realize is that
in order for an elephant
to be docile enough
to stand there and let
you touch him safely,
that elephant has to be
trained in the same way
that an elephant throwing
darts at a show is trained
as a young baby going through
abusive fear based training.
What usually happens is
when a elephant is about
two years old the baby is confined
and over several days and weeks
the baby is slowly trained.
This young elephant...
he's kinda freaking out.
The first thing they teach
the baby is how to sit.
He said they use a hook at the back
and someone pulls down and then someone
uses another hook at the front
and the baby's legs are tied together
and they pull the legs front
and they do this over and over
until the baby learns how to do it.
He said to me we have to use the bull hook
so the baby will know.
(crowd chattering)
Knowing that Meena was four years old
and elephants live 80 years.
They live as old as people do.
She was at the beginning of what could be
another 60, 65, 70 years of this life.
Was very overwhelming
to sort of grapple with.
So it's been three days since
we were last at Maetaman Camp.
We're returning today just
to see what the situation is.
And we'll of course check on Meena
and see how she's being held in her stall
when she's not performing.
It's the spiked chain.
Watch her foot, it's her right foot.
(somber music)
She was just out posing with tourists.
Then her mahout just brought
her back to her (mumbles)
and put the spiked chain
back around her foot
and I'm realizing now
that this is her chain.
This isn't a chain that he uses
sometimes to discipline her.
This is her chain.
She's been in it every
time we've seen her.
There's no other chain in sight
that he could possibly be switching out.
It's tethered to the pole.
If any tourist sort of
thinks, "Is this okay?"
"Is this hurting the animal?"
Most places are very quick
with a response to say,
"Oh no, they're fine."
"It's just the way the way it is."
"Don't worry about it."
And that satisfies most people
and they say, "Oh okay, they
must know what they're doing."
"They care for the animal."
The system is actually
designed to be confusing.
Most tourists I really do believe
kinda wanna do the right thing.
They love animals and they
wanna get close to them.
It's simple.
It's understandable.
And since 2014 the
number of animal selfies
that people have posted
has grown almost 300%.
Part of what often inspires
people to go on this trip
is because they saw someone else do it
and they want that
experience for themself.
However, social media
really does go both ways.
I wanted to actually
visit a couple of good
elephant experiences in Thailand
just to see for myself
what that looked like
and how it differed from
places that may call themselves
a sanctuary but offer
a lot of interaction.
So we went to Elephant Valley
in Chiang Rai, Thailand.
They have elephants that have been rescued
from the traditional industry
and tourists are not allowed
to get close to the elephants.
This is probably the only
interaction that tourists will get
while they're here.
It's snack time so they're able to feed
each of the elephants some bananas
and you can see this barrier is there
mostly to prevent people from
going into the elephant grounds.
It's totally voluntary.
The elephants come for snack time
and then they can leave
whenever they want.
It's a sustainable option for
elephant tourism in the area.
Social media can actually
be harnessed for good.
You can go to an ethical place
and you can use social
media to sort of educate
your own communities on ways that they can
be part of the solution.
This entire industry is so
incredibly entrepreneurial
that it can and does change on a dime.
So when people decide that
they no longer want to
give their money to a
certain sort of experience,
and if enough people do that,
then the experiences
themselves will shift.
You the viewer and reader and traveler
and just citizen are at
the heart of this story
just as much as anyone else is.
You have tremendous power as
a consumer to change things.
(mellow music)
