If you love elephants, taking certain “elephant experiences” off of your Bucket List can help change the future for the thousands of elephants kept in captivity in Asia.
Captive elephants often endure a lifetime of inhumane treatment due to the demands of uninformed travelers. What tourists are willing to pay for is what will be provided, so choose kindness and not cruelty, and spread the word. Close interactions with elephants held in captivity is #NotOnMyBucketList!
Stolen from their families, confined without free access to food, water, and rest while forced to undergo sustained and systematic abuse, trekking/temple/circus and tourist elephants are suffering shells of what they used to be. Now that you know, will you still go? Suffering is #NotOnMyBucketList.
If your vacation includes an elephant experience, make sure you’re supporting truly ethical sanctuaries and safaris whom place the needs of the elephant high above the desires of your holiday. #NotOnMyBucketList helps create a world where loving elephants means letting them BE elephants.
Elephants in captivity are not going away, and animal lovers can be a part of the problem or a part of the solution. If an elephant is made to do behaviors you wouldn’t see them do in the wild, then don’t support organizations making them act that way for you. Let your bucket list create a better world for elephants!
Our ultimate wish is for no elephant to be held captive. As much as we wish this could happen overnight, there are many pieces of the environmental, cultural, financial, and political puzzles which must be put into place until elephants are unchained for good. Wise choices by each of us in the present will help create a kinder world for the elephants in the future!
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