Elephants are kept in many tourism facilities across Asia and beyond. Many of them are used in riding tourism during the day and are either taken to forested areas at night, hobbled so their movement is restricted, kept on long chains attached to trees, or chained within the confines of the tourism facility on concrete substrate. Due to such management regimes the welfare of the individual elephants is compromised. These elephants may spend extensive hours chained in one place, often with little access to food or water and with very few opportunities to express their natural behaviors such as foraging, roaming and socializing. These conditions have a detrimental impact on their physical and psychological well being. 

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Their use for interactive tourism presents a very real public safety risk with both tourists and mahouts at risk of being seriously injured or killed if an elephant behaves in a manner which becomes dangerous to humans. Elephants are large and potentially dangerous wild animals and in order for tourists to have an interactive experience a mahout must keep the elephant under control. In most cases this is achieved via a bullhook or a sharpened tool used to ‘guide’ elephants into the places and positions. The bullhook or other tools are used in some situations to mete out physical punishment. No matter how gently the bullhook may be used with an animal in the presence of visitors, at some point it had to be established as a negative reinforcer in order to be effective. That means causing enough pain and discomfort that the animal remembers, and seeks to avoid that experience by complying with the instruction being given. A smaller handheld ‘jab-stick’ (sometimes a nail) may also be used to jab the elephant in sensitive places such as behind the ears, to ensure it complies with the instructions from the mahout.

​The use of these instruments removes an elephant’s choice and control over its immediate environment and actions, forcing it to comply with the wishes of the mahout regardless of whether or not the action it is being asked to perform is in the best interest of the elephant. 

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​Many elephants at tourism camps are also forced to endure the indignity and in many cases physical pain of being made to perform circus tricks, such as standing on their heads, spinning in circles whilst standing on one leg and walking on top of rolling barrels. Forcing animals to perform unnatural tricks also portrays them to the public in a humiliating manner, instead of showing their natural grace and beauty and thereby promoting empathy and respect.

ce and beauty and thereby promoting empathy and respect.