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this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2024
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I used to be cool with the idea of elephant riding, seemed cool and it’s not like such a big animal is even going to notice a human on its shoulders. Then I was at a ren fair or something like one that had an elephant to ride. When we got in line for it I saw just what they do to get an elephant to walk around. I think you have to be a real piece of shit to poke an animal with a sharp stick all day for a job.
They're also quite intelligent and are likely to be extremely aware of their captive situation. It's basically slavery.
The MD renn fest had an elephant.
There was a divide between the folks who thought “ohhhh it fine” and the rest of us who thought “elephants don’t live in Maryland and definitely don’t give rides to screaming children, willingly”
The MD renn fest elephant was also used as Trump advertising at other events, which did NOT help the communities view here in MD.
There was a noticeable boycott until they stopped abusing the elephants at the MD renn fest.
I went to an elephant sanctuary in Thailand. They explained that riding elephants is incredibly stressful for the elephant's back, and that in order to train them to obey, torture is usually involved.
I'm against zoos as well. I know some do good work with rehabilitation and such (and we should support them), but a lot just capture animals for our enjoyment. Even if they're not explicitly mistreated, it's pretty cruel to just keep them in a cage for the rest of their lives.
If you look too closely at any way humans use animals, it gets sad really fast.