Investigation: Elephants in Bali Subjected to Violence and Neglect
A PETA video reveals that elephants at tourist traps in Bali, Indonesia were chained in barren pens with wounds and scars on their heads and scars on their legs. Workers hit and jabbed them repeatedly with bullhooks –weapons that resemble a fireplace poker with a metal hook on one end.
UPDATE – 15 January 2026: Just two months after PETA’s exposé and following government recommendations to meet evolving welfare standards, Bali Zoo has ended elephant rides. It’s a step forward, but animals are still being used. Never support animal tourism.
Bali’s Elephant Tourist Traps
The facilities exposed in PETA’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.
Here’s how 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]. 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.”
Tourists Pay for Animal Abuse
The elephant tourism industry tricks people into paying for the abuse and exploitation of elephants who should be living with their families in nature, not chained and constantly threatened with violence.
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 are kept chained while not working and are constantly threatened with physical violence and psychological punishment.
Don’t Be That Tourist
Help end this abuse by steering clear of tourist traps that force elephants to give rides to or bathe with humans.
Help Animals in 2026: Renew Your PETA Membership!
Donate Now
