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 Expert
Posts: 2128
  
| So I was watching something on TV last night that featured Elephants. I find elephants fastinating and beautiful.. While watching I began to think about how circuses have retired their elephants because of public outcry. At first I was like "good", and then something hit me. What if one day people started calling for me to not race or ride my barrel horse because they do not know any better and think it is cruel. Rodeo is on PETA and others lists already. I know there are many elephant training methods that are very abusive and sad. I do not condone that. It just made me wonder if not all elephant training is bad and I just dont know any better.
One big difference in the two is that horses are demesticated animals while I think it can be argued that elephants are not. Anyone have any insight into the elephant situation? Now I am very curious.  |
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 Extreme Veteran
Posts: 425
Location: California | There is a guy over in my area that has a few elephants; as well as a small zoo. He raises most of his animals like pets-gets them young and raises them hands on. They are a part of EARS (Elephants of Africa Rescue Society). I know he has his elephants trained-the facility is not huge, so they animals get to go on walks to get out and what not. I believe some may also be trained to be ridden. The first link is to the zoo's webite-second is about the elephants.
We also just had our big rodeo over here in Cali, there were protesters outside trying to shut everything down-people who clearly did not have a clue what actually goes on in rodeo life.
http://www.wildthingsinc.com/html/_welcome_to_our_jungle_.html
http://elephantears.org |
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  Ms. Marine
Posts: 4641
Location: Texas | I don't know much of anything about it but I would imagine that it's a lot like anything else... there are animals trained with bad methods and animals trained with good ones. For the most part the ones you'll hear about are the bad methods... |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 710
| A girl I work with did vaulting in the circus, and they had elephants. She always said they had the best of care, etc. I've actually thought your point a bit, what would happen if animal rights activists really came down on the horse industry like they did the circus, then what? Also, the elephants don't know anything but the circus, so when you throw them in the sanctuary or zoo, it's going to be an adjustment...plus they're very intelligent which makes it harder. They probably love their handlers and they're getting everything they know taken away. It's like throwing a horse you raised into the wild, it's not going to know what to do...But I think they would adjust over time..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/circus_leaves_town |
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 Too Skinny
Posts: 8009
 
Location: LA Lower Alabama | One thing to keep in mind is the amount of people with domesticated animals vs the number of people with elephants. They won that fight because there are not as many backing them where as with the equine industry they would have one heck of a fight on their hands. it is very similar to the gun industry. Some love and some hate so there will always be issues. |
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Elephant training...