Anyone who doesn't work with elephants professionally shouldn't be close to them. They are big, smart and can hold a grudge. You don't go and pet a lion or a bear, why would you go and pet an elephant?
this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2025
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Elephants have an image in popular culture as being 'gentle giants' - and the companies who can benefit from that image by offering elephant petting, bathing and other experiences have no reason to suggest it's anything other than perfectly safe.
“Charismatic megafauna” are literally the poster-children for environmental movements because they look cool or cute and can hang in the public zeitgeist for a while. Downside is, yeah, we forget they’re wild animals.
One of the best things I was taught growing up was a deep love and appreciation for the natural world and that the best way to appreciate wildlife was from afar for both the safety of me and the animal.
Yeah, wild animals aren't friends from childhood cartoons, they rarely are friendly.
It's not that they're rarely friendly ... it's that they're wild animals that shouldn't be required to be friendly.
Because they're WILD animals.
You couldn't pay me to get close to an elephant. They are huge. The "elephant ride" guys had what looked like a pick axe to beat them into submission and it didn't phase them, like about how much you care about a fly landing on your arm.
I did as a kid, but in the US. Trying to remember if it was at the zoo or Marine World (now 6 flags Discovery Kingdom). It's kinda wild in hindsight that it was a thing in the states. Just from a litigious standpoint, that's gotta be super dangerous, and I was a kid on a field trip. I know for a fact my parents didn't sign a waiver because they weren't there. We also did tug o war with the elephant. Shocker, the elephant kicked our asses.
Tug of war was banned from the Olympics because it's pretty dangerous (not against elephants, it was humans against humans).
Well, there is a pretty big difference between a carnivore/omnivore and a herbivore animal when it comes to how dangerous they are to other animals including humans.
But certainly not "safe" since they're so huge, powerful and wild animals.
One of the most dangerous animals is a hippo...
"Most dangerous" is misleading. Yes, they appear on various top-ten lists if dangerous animals, and you should never approach one, but the annual deaths are only in the triple digits. Mosquitos and humans are a vastly bigger threat.
How many people encounter mosquitos Vs hippos?
That's a good question but still not the whole story. It's easy to avoid a hippo but damn near impossible to avoid mosquitos if they live in your climate.
Large herbivores are usually extremely dangerous animals. They have to be able to fight off the carnivores.
And humans are carnivores. And it doesn't matter if you're vegan, the animal can't tell.
Usually prey animals determine if another animal is a threat from the placement of their eyes. Front facing eyes usually mean the animal is built for hunting prey, and side-mounted eyes are for prey needing to keep aware of their surroundings.
We have front facing eyes so most animals immediately will register us as a threat.
Bison are also herbivores and there's no way in hell I'm going to pet those things.
Ya, I'm not walking up to an elephant either.
My aunt owns a herd of Hyland cows (which have huge horns) and they are not aggressive at all but can accidentally hurt you with them.
Herbivores that have tusks or antlers rarely aren't dangerous to humans (even domesticated like deers or cows), big herbivores even more so. Elphants are the animals that often kill other big animals for fun with their big tusks, you can look up elephant kills rhino for example.
Tell that to people encountering Moose.
People are scared of bears, and fail to realize a Moose will merc you just for looking at it wrong.
And once it has decided that, it doesn't stop until you stop.
Hippopotamus is one of the most dangerous animals in existence and it's a herbivore.
My point was a response to the comment I replied to saying he didn't understand why people would pet an elephant but not a lion or bear
Of course literally all large wild animals are dangerous and I wasn't disputing that one bit!
Looking at some lists of the most dangerous animals, most deaths seem to be a result of the animals spreading diseases or using venom. The only animal most people need to be worried about killing them using size and strength is another person.
I was just responding to the comment about why people would pet an elephant over a lion or bear.
If I was told I had to Walk into one of two rooms, both having completely wild animals, I'd pick the elephant over a lion or bear 100% of the time
In that case I'd agree with you. It seems like the only objective way to say how dangerous an animal is is to look at something like reported deaths, but you'd really want to divide those numbers by some measure of how frequently each animal encounters a human, and they data is not so readily available.
Not all "elephant experience" parks are the same. Some only have rescue animals, don't use them for "shows", segregate male animals from guests, and only allow interaction on the animal's terms.
Similar to the difference between an accredited zoo and Joe Exotic.
They treat those elephants horribly so tourists can come use them as a tourist attraction. Never go to one of them.
At this rate we need an Elephant Week.
We already have Darwin Awards
Elephants kill far more people every year than sharks do. Like, hundreds of people every year versus a dozen or so.
Most "sanctuaries" are more petting zoos than true sanctuaries.
The real sanctuaries have very strict rules about human/elephant interactions and do not have guests "bathing" elephants or even feeding elephants. Elephants are entirely capable of showering themselves. Forcing them to lie down and roll over to accommodate tourists showering them 3x a day is not part of their natural behavior.
Allowing them a comfortable and safe space to retire where they can be their natural selves is the goal of a real sanctuary. The rest of the places are petting zoos for the owners to enrich themselves under the guise of "altruistic elephant care"
Reading this thread is like a waterfall of ignorance and shitshow.
I'm no expert on animal husbandry, and in particular elephant sanctuaries, but I have recently been to one.
That being said, I'm sure there are elephant sanctuaries that treat their elephants bad, just as there are good ones. I can't say which percentage of the sanctuaries are good/bad and I doubt any of the posters here can enlighten us on that.
What I can say is that these are NOT wild elephants. I was told there are roughly 12k wild elephants in Thailand.
These elephants are bought from farmers that are unable to sustain/feed the elephant from the work they are being used. Apparently it's not uncommon to earn 500 Baht (ca 15 USD) a day as a farmer, and that is not enough to buy the 10% of body weight in food for the elephant. Elephants are often inhereted as they cost around 1 mill Baht (2,5 for baby).
So... Domesticated elephants can't survive alone in the wild as they have been bred out some of the skills to manage on their own. So a mismanaged elephant is better off being sold off to a sanctuary that can care for it until it dies. Which is the purpose of sanctuaries - put an elephant out to pasture.
The sanctuary I visited only had female elephants and was but interested in breeding elephants - because they are not in it to add more domesticated elephants, but rescue elephants that need help. I'm sure other sanctuaries manage male elephants, I can't say how they deal with mating and pregnancies in regards to rescue other elephants in need Vs "free elephant" for tourist trap.
TL;DR Post in this thread acts like domesticated elephants are a wild animal like a boar. It's more like a cow that weighs 4-6 tonnes. Death by cow occurs every year, you don't go screaming about that when it happens between your bites of hamburger. It's of course horrible for the family of the poor girl being killed. Hopefully humans and elephants will get the treatment they need and deserve.
These are huge animals and can mess a human up, intentionally or not. Not keeping some separation when dealing with them is inherently risky.
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