On Saving Elephants
He’s one of those rare people who, against odds, seek to make their vision come true. In his case, it’s a vision of saving an endangered species, and giving elephants a better life. He may not explain it that way, though. To him, his elephants are simply like family.
Yes, someone has figured it out. The elephants can be saved, they can live happy lives, and they can forever get what they really need: a role in a modern-day economy.
Wait . . . What was that last one, you ask?
The above paragraph concludes, "Can Breeding for Personality Save the Asian Elephant?" by Jocelyn Ford, a science writer who just might never have heard the term "animal rights."
Let’s deconstruct:
- You wouldn’t have guessed, but the article that ended with the above paragraph began with:
It never crossed my mind that the fate of the Asian elephant could depend in part on its personality, and that, just like other domesticated animals, elephants could be bred for character.
According to Laithonglian Meepan, Thailand’s, and perhaps the world’s most successful elephant breeder, if the species is to survive, elephants need to get along with people. They need to have a role in a modern-day economy.
- Wild elephants in Thailand are dying faster than they’re reproducing, so in order to save them, Meepan breeds the gentle animals, "the ones who get along well with people." (In the distant past they were trained for battle and more recently they were trained for logging.)
- The goal is to retire old elephants to a place like Elephant Stay, which I didn’t investigate thoroughly but appears to be a sanctuary where the animals can live out their lives in peace. And if that’s the case, that’s great and I’m all for it.
- But in order to retire the animals, the other part of the plan is to "have the younger elephants support the moms and retirees by giving rides to tourists and doing film and show performances." So the baby essentially takes the mother’s place in the economy.
- Why must elephants work? Because "elephant owners . . . need to earn a living from their animals."
This situation and this article is loaded with assumptions that are never even hinted at, the most disturbing of which is that elephants exist to somehow make the lives of humans easier. I have written in the past about my ambivalence regarding programs to save species that are endangered because of us. I’m not sure that Thailand, from the point of view of the elephants (hey, there’s a novel approach), is a place they’d want to live when their entire lives are being controlled by a species that thinks it’s acting as a benevolent guardian. I know that’s how we like to think of ourselves as we swoop in to save the day at the eleventh hour, but is breeding elephants so we may continue to use them really in their best interests?