Taking the Big Break

Dear Singapore Zoo,

Me at the Zoo’s Komodo Dragon exhibit

My name is Lorenzo and I am ten years old. I am traveling around the world with my family. We went to your zoo and loved it! I particularly liked the Komodo Dragon exhibit and the White Tiger one. I enjoyed the minimal boundaries. I was very excited to go to your zoo and wasn’t disappointed until I saw the elephant riding.

I looked online, at your website, for an explanation and was still disappointed. I’m sure you treat your elephants nicely now, but when I was in Thailand I learned that, in order to be trained to give rides, all elephants must endure cruel treatment when they are young. Elephants are intelligent life forms. Let them free, don’t ride on them! Hitting elephants with a metal hook in any way, shape, or form is painful. At least for me, walking around all day with a 860 pound backpack all day would not be comfortable. As you are aware, elephants go through the crush to become submissive. One young elephant I learned about in Thailand couldn’t even recognize its own mom after 1 year of “training” or torture from hooks, blades, and people. While I know you go through efforts to take good care of your elephants, I know that these elephants had to have been tortured which was startling to me after all your conservation labors.

I understand that you attract money by providing elephant riding. If you closed elephant riding, but still wanted a little extra money, maybe you could consider letting the tourists feed them (for a fee) and hire photographers to take their photo. Then you could sell the photos and keep a portion of the feeding fee.

Elephants are amazing animals that deserve better than torture, hooks, and 860 pound backpacks. Please treat them more respectfully and give them the rights that they deserve. I loved all the conservation efforts that you went through to save endangered animals and I hope that you will use your great opportunity to teach the public how elephants are tortured instead of continuing the harmful practice of riding them.

By promoting elephant riding, you are perpetuating interest in the experience. There may be lots of submissive elephants around now, and it might seem reasonable to employ them in giving rides. But if rides stay popular, it will increase the motivation to “crush” future elephants. It is a cycle that can only be stopped by educating people now.

Thank you for spending the time reading this.

Best Regards,

Lorenzo