Dozens of Chained and Abused ‘Elephants’ Join PETA India and GoSharpener’s Appeal to End Elephant Rides Ahead of Animal Rights Day
As Rajaji Tiger Reserve and Jim Corbett National Park in Uttarakhand resume elephant rides after a seven-year hiatus, and in protest of elephant rides at Amer Fort in Jaipur, dozens of PETA India and GoSharpener supporters wore geometric elephant masks and chains and staged a powerful appeal to the public at Jantar Mantar Dharna Sthal to reject elephant rides for International Animal Rights Day. With their palms painted blood-red and holding placards declaring, ‘Beaten and Abused: Say No to Elephant Rides’, they symbolised the daily violence endured by elephants forced into ‘entertainment’.
Tearing baby elephants from their families, beating them into submission, chaining them, and forcing them to carry tourists on their backs lifelong, day after day, is indefensibly cruel. Elephants are highly intelligent and sensitive beings who suffer physically and psychologically when enslaved for rides.
Elephants used for rides are separated from their mothers and beaten until they obey. They are then controlled with sharp, hooked ankush weapons, chained for long hours, and often forced to stand on hard concrete floors that cause lifelong foot and musculoskeletal problems like arthritis. Many suffer from untreated wounds, infections, and deep psychological trauma. Deprived of the ability to roam, forage, socialise, or make their own decisions, many develop severe distress behaviours, including endlessly rocking back and forth.
Numerous inspections of elephants used for rides at Amer Fort have documented rampant cruelty in violation of animal-protection laws. Inspectors found partially blind elephants being forced to give rides to tourists, the use of weapons and chains with sharp spikes, mutilated ears and tusks, prolonged chaining, and severe confinement when not in use.
Frustrated elephants often attack. An elephant named Gouri (‘ride no 86’), who severely injured a male shopkeeper in Amer in October 2022, later attacked a female Russian tourist on 13 February 2024 in the main courtyard of Amer Fort. PETA India’s efforts have led to stop Gouri’s rides at Amer Fort, and it has now appealed to the authorities to rehabilitate her to a sanctuary, where she can begin to recover from the mental trauma of a lifetime of enslavement. According to a 2018 Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI) report, Gouri is kept in Rajasthan illegally, without an ownership certificate.
