Breaking: Video Reveals Elephants Hit, Wounded, and Chained in Bali’s Tourist Attractions

Bali — A new PETA Asia video reveals that elephants at tourist attractions in Bali were chained in barren pens with wounds and scars on their heads and scars on their legs and that workers hit and jabbed them repeatedly with bullhooks—weapons that resemble a fireplace poker with a metal hook on one end. The facilities exposed in PETA Asia’s undercover video include Bakas Adventure Elephant Safari and Rafting and Mason Elephant Park & Lodge—which market themselves to tourists as “elephant rescues”—as well as the Bali Zoo.

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In the video, a former contractor at Mason Elephant Park & Lodge describes the abusive tactics used to “break” elephants so that they will submit: “Whenever they are not following directions, we don’t give them [food],” he explains. “You have to hit them hard to make them more compliant. … If the elephants are not compliant with blunt hooks, then handlers use the sharp ones, until the elephants are bleeding.”

“This shameful industry tears elephants away from their natural habitats and tricks unsuspecting tourists into paying for animal abuse,” says Senior Campaigns Advisor to PETA Australia Mimi Bekhechi. “PETA urges travellers to do their research and stay away from sham ‘rescues’ that force elephants to interact with tourists.”

In nature, elephants live in matriarchal herds, protect one another, and share mothering responsibilities for the herd’s babies. But those forced to give rides in the tourism industry are ripped away from their mothers as babies, immobilised with tightly bound ropes, and gouged with nail-studded sticks or other sharp objects so that they will obey out of fear. Adults are forced into a life of servitude, and as the video reveals, they are kept chained while not working and are constantly threatened with physical violence and psychological punishment.

PETA, whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment,” points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits. For more information, please visit PETA.org.auand follow PETA on Facebook and Instagram.

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