Thailand with its coconut tree fringed white-sand beaches and busy urban cities is a popular tourist destination; with world-wide appeal. #notably tourists flock to Thailand from Europe, Russian andAmerica for the holiday experience of a lifetime. Unfortunately, these same tourists often fund, and support animal abuse throughout Thailand. Myself and fellow LFP volunteer Lucy travelled to Thailand to raise awareness and gather information on the primate photo souvenir trade. The photo souvenir trade is tourists pay to have their photograph taken with ‘exotic’ animals. These selfies can be seen on many social media platforms, often with many likes.
Due to their ‘cute’ appeal slow lorises appear frequently as ‘photo-props’ within the Thai photo-souvenir trade, along with various snakes, lizards, birds and other animals. No area seems to be out of bounds; touts comb the beaches, bars, markets and streets approaching unsuspecting tourists to exchange a slow loris selfie for cash. The ‘selfie’ culture, and social media obsession are fuelling this wave of animal abuse throughout Thailand (and many other countries too!).
I was shocked to see the exploitation of these small, nocturnal and formerly-wild animals first hand. My first encounter was during the bright midday sun, and heat over 30’ Celsius on Karen beach, Phuket. Slow lorises being nocturnal should not be out in such bright light, it damages their eyes and causes them pain – yet two children candidly carrying a slow loris seemed to appear behind me and without saying a word attempted to place the slow loris on my arm. Many slow lorises of different ages and species could be seen both during the day and night – paraded around by their captors for profit to the entertainment of tourists.
Many tourists were unaware of the cruelty these animals had undoubtable endured to allow their holiday snap to happen; retinas burnt by the harsh Thai sun, teeth painfully pulled out, fed an inappropriate diet, isolated from others of their kind, fed an inappropriate diet – the list goes on! Even more people seemed unaware the practice is illegal, and even sharing such a picture on social media could result in arrest and prosecution.
It’s easy to blame the handlers who approach tourists – but often they are also themselves victims of exploitation. Photo souvenir trade, and the illegal pet trade are often heavily linked to other illegal underworld activities; drug smuggling, prostitution etc. Often the handler, commonly children are made to tout tourists, both the animal and person may be victims. As long as tourists continue to fuel demand for and finance the trade it will continue, resources and information on the Thai photo prop trade can be found from our Thai project partner the Love Wildlife foundation.
Whilst talking to tourists on the primate photo souvenir trade we heard many other stories of animal abuse, and several of these we witnessed first-hand. The cruel exploitation of elephants for tourist entertainment. Crippled, aging elephant, living in a small concrete cage being forced to carry entire families for several kilometres during the peak midday sun. Tigers being ill-treated and drugged to enable tourists to stroke, bottle feed and take a photo with them. Many of these organisations advertise themselves as ‘sanctuaries’ and imply they are helping the animals; when exploitation and abuse is clearly occurring. Yet tourists continue to flock to such organisations for the experience of encountering and touching wildlife – no wild elephant, tiger or slow loris (or almost any wild animal) would happily be ridden, stroked or fed!
Another curious account of animal exploitation we heard about in surveys and witnessed first-hand on the small Thai island of Koi Phangan is macaque coconut farming. Wild macaques are captured, often the mother is killed to enable an infant to be captured, and ‘trained’ to harvest coconuts.
Macaques, like all primates are intelligent and can be conditioned to climb trees, identify and harvest only the ripe coconuts. These animals are the subject of cruelty; often seen in chains in cafes for entertainment or in small cages, exposed to the Thai heat, isolated from others of their kind and abused. Much like palm oil many coconut oils found on shop shelves throughout the world are harvested in this way. All of the animal abuse we witnessed throughout Thailand was funded and fueled by demand from the western world. The problems decimating the wildlife of Thailand, stem from consumers in Europe, America and other western nations. MATT GARDINER
