 Thailand’s elephants, both in the wild and in captivity, are victims of the country’s tourist industry. Each baby broken and sold to one of Thailand’s 40-plus elephant camps brings between $2,000 and $4,650 dollars. Under the guise of ecotourism, elephants are forced to perform circus tricks, paint pictures with their trunks, play instruments and give rides to tourists.
 As a result, cash-strapped villagers and poachers are ready, willing, and able to cash in on the baby elephant bonanza. The three baby elephants depicted in the accompanying video represent only a fraction of those broken in villages across Thailand. In just four months, this one village alone subjected approximately 10 baby elephants to this ritualized torture and abuse, also known as “Phaajaan.” Phaajaan means “to break the love between two” (e.g., between mother and baby). While the mahouts claim to have killed “only one” elephant, villagers report that half of all elephants subjected to the breaking process do not survive.
In the wild, poachers routinely kill mother elephants in order to steal and break their young. According to officials in Thailand, “Poachers need to kill their mothers because elephants have strong maternal instincts and do not allow anyone near their offspring … baby elephants continue suckling their mother, even after their death, and refuse to move with the herd.”
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