Immersion dans le cruel univers du tourisme animalier
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AnimalsTranscript
00:00 Seven, eight, nine, ten!
00:05 - Oh my god.
00:06 - Oh, my peaceful, high, hips.
00:10 - Oh, Jesus.
00:19 We came behind the stadium where the elephants perform,
00:23 and we found this juvenile elephant.
00:25 He has a gaping red wound at his temple.
00:29 He also has a broken leg.
00:31 The other one is chained up.
00:33 He looks totally emaciated, skin and bones.
00:36 And this is the worst shape I've seen an elephant in in Thailand.
00:41 All in the name of entertainment.
00:55 Wildlife tourism is a massive industry, accounting for 10 to 20% of the global tourism industry.
01:02 People go on vacation and pay money to either view or interact with animals.
01:08 I don't think we can ignore the role that social media plays.
01:12 The sheer number of people now not only posting their travel experiences,
01:17 but consuming others' travel experiences,
01:19 means that these things are spread in an instant with the click of a button.
01:24 But the issue with wildlife tourism is
01:27 most people have absolutely no idea of what goes on behind the scenes.
01:33 I reported this story on wildlife tourism with photographer Kirsten Luce for a year.
01:41 And we set out knowing that we really had to sort of narrow our focus
01:48 and go to kind of hot spots around the world where this industry is a massive part of the local economy.
01:56 But there was nothing that prepared me for what I actually saw in the field,
02:01 especially when we went to Thailand.
02:15 This is a place that puts on monkey shows.
02:18 And as you can see behind me, this monkey is in a small metal cage.
02:22 You can see it's jumping over and over and over.
02:24 And this is called zookosis.
02:26 And animals that are kept in captivity do this when they're in psychological distress.
02:31 I'm here at a zoo on the top floor of a shopping mall in Bangkok.
02:40 This kind of place, animals are living in conditions that no living being should be living in.
02:46 The only gorilla in Thailand is apparently in the zoo.
02:50 The gorilla was reaching its hand through the cage onto a puddle on the concrete floor
02:57 and scooping up fingerfuls of water.
03:00 It seemed to be the only way this gorilla could access water.
03:07 We just finished watching the crocodile show, which was pretty disturbing.
03:11 It consisted of two trainers dragging crocodiles around by their tails,
03:16 smacking them on the head with sticks, and then everyone would laugh.
03:20 It was all designed as a comedy routine.
03:24 On most people's bucket list for going to Thailand, you're going to want to see an elephant.
03:31 So we went to dozens of elephant experiences all over Thailand.
03:37 Mahout trainers that care for their elephants used their bullhooks on the elephants
03:42 to get them to pose to allow tourists to take photos with them.
03:46 A bullhook is a stick, and at the end of the wooden stick is a metal prong or hook.
03:54 And this is the instrument used to control an elephant.
03:57 [Bullhooks being used to control elephants]
04:02 I'm here at Me Taman Elephant Camp in Chiang Mai.
04:08 I think the most shocking thing was during the actual show,
04:13 some of these bullhooks had nails on their end.
04:17 I witnessed a couple of mahouts that had nails in their hands that they were coping behind the elephant's ear
04:22 to get them to perform and do the painting.
04:26 A young elephant named Nina, she's four years old, and she performed in the show.
04:31 She painted a picture, so she did have a nail in her ear.
04:35 And after the show, we walked over to where she was being kept.
04:39 There was a chain around her leg that had spikes in it.
04:47 The spikes were all the way around, pressing into her skin.
04:50 She was kind of hovering it in the air because obviously it hurt to put weight on it.
04:54 And I asked her, "Mahout, why?" And he said, "It's because she likes to kick."
04:58 Her mahout said that he puts it on for a little while to teach her, and then he takes it off at night.
05:06 I decided that I wanted to come back later to see if she actually was on a different chain.
05:14 With permission of the facility, we ended up coming back six hours later.
05:20 And I feel like before I got to her, I just knew.
05:25 It's about 7.30pm. As you can see, it's getting dark and it's pouring rain.
05:32 Nina has had a spiked chain around her ankle since we last left her.
05:39 And her mahout, he told us that at night he removes it.
05:42 But he hasn't, and it was a lie.
05:46 So I don't know how she's going to sleep. It's really, really upsetting to watch.
05:51 It was the first time I sort of witnessed deception that sort of runs through this industry.
05:58 And I wanted to see for myself where these animals are born, how they're trained,
06:05 the economics behind this industry.
06:11 And if you want to go to ground zero, basically, of the elephant industry in Thailand, you have to go to Bantaklan.
06:17 There are 3,500 captive elephants in the country, and half of them are actually sourced to Bantaklan.
06:29 It's a place where elephants are bred, trained, and then when they are ready,
06:36 they're sold down south to camps around the country.
06:41 The Thai government actually offers a subsidy to mahouts who care for elephants there.
06:49 The elephant tourism industry is a massive source of income for the country, so they actively fund it,
06:57 ensuring that the elephant entertainment industry is healthy
07:03 and that there are always new babies being funneled in, and that it is thriving.
07:08 Most people in the town are mahouts, meaning they work with elephants for a living.
07:16 A young man was happy to be honest with me about how they train their elephants,
07:21 and what tourists don't realize is that in order for an elephant to be docile enough to stand there
07:28 and let you touch him safely, that elephant has to be trained in the same way that an elephant
07:35 throwing darts in a show is trained as a young baby going through abusive, fear-based training.
07:41 What usually happens is when an elephant is about two years old, the baby is confined,
07:50 and over several days and weeks, the baby is slowly trained.
07:57 This young elephant is kind of freaking out.
08:01 The first thing they teach the baby is how to sit, and so he said they use a hook at the back,
08:09 and someone pulls down, and then someone uses another hook at the front, and the baby's legs are tied together,
08:14 and they pull the legs front, and they do this over and over until the baby learns how to do it.
08:18 He said to me, "We have to use the bull hook so the baby will know."
08:25 [Music]
08:28 Wow!
08:31 Knowing that Mina was four years old, and elephants live 80 years, they live as long as people do,
08:38 she was at the beginning of what could be another 60, 65, 70 years of this life.
08:45 It was very overwhelming to sort of grapple with.
08:53 So, it's been three days since we were last at Mehtaman camp.
08:58 We're returning today just to see what the situation is, and we'll, of course, check on Mina
09:05 and see how she's being held in her stall when she's not performing.
09:11 It's the spiked chain.
09:21 Watch your foot. It's her right foot.
09:24 She was just out posing with tourists.
09:35 Then our mahout just brought her back to her holding stall and put the spiked chain back around her foot,
09:42 and I'm realizing now that this is her chain.
09:45 This isn't a chain he uses sometimes to discipline her. This is her chain.
09:51 She's been in it every time we've seen him.
09:53 There's no other chain in sight that he could possibly be switching out.
09:56 It's tethered to the pole.
10:00 If any tourist sort of thinks, like, "Is this okay? Is this hurting the animal?"
10:06 Most places are very quick with a response to say, "Oh, no, they're fine.
10:10 Like, it's just the way it is. Don't worry about it."
10:12 That satisfies most people, and they say, "Oh, okay. Like, they must know what they're doing.
10:16 They care for the animal."
10:17 The system is actually designed to be confusing.
10:20 Most tourists, I really do believe, kind of want to do the right thing.
10:24 They love animals, and they want to get close to them.
10:27 It's simple. It's understandable.
10:29 And since 2014, the number of animal selfies that people have posted has grown almost 300%.
10:38 Part of what often inspires people to go on this trip is because they saw someone else do it,
10:43 and they want that experience for themselves.
10:45 However, social media really does go both ways.
10:49 I wanted to actually visit a couple of good elephant experiences in Thailand,
10:57 just to see for myself what that looked like and how it differed from places that may call themselves a sanctuary
11:03 but offer a lot of interaction.
11:06 So, we went to Elephant Valley in Chiang Rai, Thailand.
11:11 They have elephants that have been rescued from the traditional industry,
11:16 and tourists are not allowed to get close to the elephants.
11:19 This is probably the only interaction that tourists will get while they're here.
11:24 It's snack time, so they're able to feed each of the elephants some bananas.
11:30 And you can see this barrier is there mostly to prevent people from going into the elephant grounds.
11:41 So, it's totally voluntary. The elephants come for snack time, and then they can leave whenever they want.
11:47 So, it's a sustainable option for elephant tourism in the area.
11:55 Social media can actually be harnessed for good.
11:59 You can go to an ethical place and use social media to sort of educate your own communities
12:05 on ways that they can be part of the solution.
12:09 This entire industry is so incredibly entrepreneurial that it can and does change on a dime.
12:17 So, when people decide that they no longer want to give their money to a certain sort of experience,
12:26 and if enough people do that, then the experiences themselves will shift.
12:31 You, the viewer and reader and traveler and just citizen, are at the heart of this story just as much as anyone else is.
12:40 You have tremendous power as a consumer to change things.
12:44 [Music]