
I Bought an Elephant to Find Out How to Save Them - axiomdata316
https://www.outsideonline.com/2405236/asian-elephant-trafficking-captivity-laos
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Ayesh
My friends family owns a family of elephants.

I grew up in Sri Lanka, and apart from the lack of coconuts in a house
disqualifies it as a house, owning an elephant signaled how prestigious the
house was.

Even nowadays, there are still families, temples, and governor houses that own
elephants. They are brought together to a big festival we have in my former
city, Kandy. More than a 100 of them, easily. They are well treated; they are
fed, and many vets take care of their health as well. At the same.time, it's
not unheard of the elephants attacking humans when panicked. They live their
entire life alongside humans, and in a heartbeat, they get panicked and attack
everyone around them.

I have come to my personal belief that leaving enough distance with them is
the best way to help out. They are smart animal beings that can manage to live
in the wilderness, and pretty much every elephant death we hear in Sri Lanka
involves either a train hitting one, some asshole shooting one, or some
asshole owning one and not taking care of them.

It's not possible to put a price on their lives of course, but if anyone is
interested in how much it would have cost them, a small 5-6 year old elephant
is about $15K.

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mayniac
>a small 5-6 year old elephant is about $15K.

What's the correlation with elephant age and price? Are younger elephants more
expensive because they're easier to train, or are older elephants more
expensive because they can get to work quickly?

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Ayesh
Younger ones tend to be more expensive.

I think there are more strict laws against "owning" younger elephants as they
need to grow up with their mother. Most people tend to get younger elephants
because of the life span. They will be easier to train, and you have a few
more years to get to know them with your own "mahout" (term they use for the
one person who takes care, tame, and train the elephant throughout the
elephants life).

For mature elephants, the owner will be paying the Mahout as well (monthly or
so) because the elephant is already used to him.

When elephants get older, they are sometimes donated to Buddhist temples to
keep.

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blotter_paper
> The main problem is habitat loss, along with a related phenomenon, human-
> elephant conflict. In India, such conflict annually causes 400 human
> fatalities and 100 elephant deaths.

Damn, if the humans didn't breed like rabbits the elephants would be winning!

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melling
Only in poorer countries. When countries become wealthier the birth rate
declines. We should make more of an effort to bring countries out of poverty.

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Ididntdothis
Birth rate declines maybe but land use stays the same. When you look at Europe
for example they don't allow much room for wildlife.

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a2tech
Human beings. What a bunch of assholes. I applaud the people tying to help,
but there’s just too many people and too little caring and long term thinking.

~~~
dang
Maybe so, but please don't post unsubstantive comments to Hacker News.
Especially not the low-information/high-indignation kind.

