Dozens of elephants exhausted after Tet holiday overworking

Over 40 elephants in Dak Lak Province have been left exhausted after being forced to overwork through the lunar new year holiday period.

Le Thi Thanh Ha, director of Ban Don Eco-tourism Company, said it received 7,000 visitors this Tet and 70% of them wanted to ride elephants. Over 40 elephants were used at various well-known destinations in Dak Lak.

About 30,000 visitors arrived in Buon Don tourism site and most of them wanted to ride elephants. Dozens of people queued up in order to ride the elephants along the Serepok River. 15 elephants had to move around non-stop to meet demand. Several elephants were too tired and didn’t want to go to the forest again, they were poked by the trainers. Each elephant carried three to four visitors as they walked slowly from exhaustion.

“When they are stubborn, I use this iron bar to poke them. They immediately follow my order,” one trainer said.

Nguyen Phuong Nam, a visitor from HCM City said, “We came here to ride the elephant and with VND200,000 (USD9) our family had one ride with some photos. But next time we won’t ride the elephant anymore. It looked tired and pitiful.”

To read the full article, click on the story title