Untitled Document

ELEPHANTS, RHINOS AND TIGERS

I love nature, and spend as much time in parks, sanctuaries and other natural habitats as I can. I spent years taking trips to the Indian subcontinent, in particular in search of tigers. The following photos - there are three linked pages - are the among the best that I have.

Loading on my backpack. While it was great to travel in different countries by elephant, I now recognize that all wild animals should be in the wild (and that we should reduce as much as possible, if not eliminate, our use of domesticated animals). The domestication of elephants when they are young, almost all of which are captured in the wild, is a brutal process. While it is true that many mahouts subsequently bond with their elephants, and treat them well, and even that there have been cases of domesticated elephants escaping to the wild and then returning, this still does not justify such treatment. Elephants are intelligent and social animals, and they should be left alone and in the wild, and, they need a huge effort on our part to ensure that they have enough wild. They need alot of habitat, and they should have it, as much as they want!

Two mahouts in a Nepal fording a river with their elephants.

It’s bath time! (This is a daily occurrence.)

An older elephant, carrying a load of grass.

Two elephants used for logging.
(This photo is from near Putao, in northern Burma.)

A work elephant. Notice the chain.

A mahout in an Indian park.

As was mentioned, many elephants are treated well.
This man is preparing elephant snacks: rice mixed with molasses and wrapped in a leaf.

I hired an elephant for a day in a sanctuary in western Nepal. Out on a small trail we met a family on a motorbike,
and the father asked if we would give his daughter a ride. Naturally, we obliged.