STAE AT WORK
We are telling tourists about the immense suffering hiding behind the welcoming face of many elephant attractions across South East Asia. We explain how baby elephants are captured from the wild and then forced to endure days of beatings to break their wild spirits. We let them know that the elephants used in attractions are often treated badly – they are frequently kept chained when not giving rides or performing tricks. Read more in our page on Horrors for Asian Elephants.
We are urging tourists to stay away from captive elephant attractions, and tour operators not to include such attractions in their itinerary except for genuine sanctuaries or viewing elephants in the wild.
Indian Government buildings, New Delhi
We are telling tourists and the people of India and South East Asia of the terrible plight of elephants kept in temples. Surrounded by crowds and noise, the animals are often rigidly chained by their legs to posts and forced to stand in the unrelenting heat for hours on end without adequate shade or water.
We aim to build alliances with the religious communities to press for the treatment of the animals to be radically improved and, in the medium term, for the use of elephants in temples and festivals to be brought to an end. Read more about the use elephants in festivals and temples here.
European Parliament, Strasbourg
We are asking UK and EU politicians to press the authorities in India and other Asian countries to tackle urgently the problems facing wild and captive elephants. This is some of our recent work:
As a result of this visit, on 16 and 23 August 2015 the Mail on Sunday published two major features on STAE’s work and the plight of Asian elephants:
The online versions of these articles generated more reader views and more reader shares than any other piece in the history of the Mail group of newspapers.
STAE will keep you informed of developments with all the above initiatives.
Houses of Parliament, London
Click here to sign our petition