The Surin Elephant Round-up is a cultural festival held every year in Surin Province, Isan, Thailand. Usually the event is organized during the third week of November on the weekend. The festival has its origins in the royal hunts which were conducted in Surin Province during medieval times. The indigenous residents of Surin, the Kuy, have been traditional practitioners of corralling elephants and training them as working animals. When the Ayutthaya Kingdom came into power these hunts were converted into a public extravaganza and wild elephants were replaced with tame ones. The festival, in its contemporary form, was first organized in the 1960s when civil war in Cambodia and the steady decline in economic value of elephants forced the elephant handlers (mahouts) to seek occupations in the entertainment and tourism industry.
Since ancient times wild elephants, believed to number in the thousands, roamed freely in the forests around Thailand. In Surin these elephants were rounded up, corralled and captured in hunts which were highly ritualistic and involved many mythological aspects. These hunts also served an economic purpose, as the captured elephants were domesticated and used as pack animals or sometimes as war animals.
The modern two-day event includes a variety of shows displaying the physical prowess and skill of the animals, such as soccer games and tugs of war with the Royal Thai Army. Elephants painting pictures, playing polo, and whirling hula hoops on their trunks are also incorporated into the show. Numerous floats are put on display. The venue for the event, Si Narong Stadium, has been dubbed the "world's largest domestic elephant village" by the Tourism Authority of Thailand!
Their lives are a misery. They are stabbed repeatedly with huge sharp hooks, pulled and squeezed by their ears.Tourists take rides even with their foreheads covered in bloody wounds. The teenage boys with the young begging elephants are not mahouts, they are not worthy of this title and important status. They are evil monsters inflicting unnecessary pain on young elephants.There was a 6 months old baby elephant with horrific scaring on her head and neck, others teased, stabbed, and forced to perform tricks even when no one around. The elephants touch trunks for reassurance, stand close to each other when they can. You can feel their sadness, loneliness, frustration and confusion. You can see the fear in their eyes.
There is little acces to fresh water, so they are dehydrated, thirsty and hot from the burning sun. When the elephants aren't begging, giving rides or performing, they are chained, often shackled by their both front feet, unable to walk...
What does this Surrin Roundup Festival really means for the elephants?
First of all: they are all being exploited! (see the activities in which they are used) These activities are always performed conflicting pain: no elephant wants out of free will do tricks to please humans!
Secondly the young elephants and babies are being used and abused as well: they are tortured: some bleeding from wounds, chained up, without food or water, they are confused, in pain, in fear trying to comfort each other! They are separated from their mothers!
We demand a total new and humane way to celebrate this ancient ritual, meaning: no exploitation, no rides, no chains, no use of babies or young elephants! There must be inspection of officials to see if the laws on animal welfare are not being broken! The elephants must have proper food and enough acces to water! Mothers and their babies should not be taken to the festival! This is too stressful for them. Turn this festival into an educating event about how elephants should be treated: with respect, love and kindness!
