In Bali Why Do They Say When You See the Elephant You Will Know

My Response to Bali's Elephant Situation
by Nigel Mason, Mason Elephant Park Founder

Many of us have now read the Al Jazeera article that has been circulating in regards to Bali's covid elephant state of affairs, and I felt that it needed to be answered from our side due to its sensationalist journalism with numerous mistakes and lack of proper research when it mentioned our park. I am not saying that this article did non reflect what some of the other elephant owners are doing in Bali, just just that my family'due south park, the Mason Elephant Park does non have starving or mistreated elephants, equally they have all been fed and proceed to be looked after to the best of our family'south power with a salubrious diet and proper veterinary intendance since the get-go of the covid outbreak.

Information technology appears to take been an article that was written without proper knowledge of the whole situation, and consequentially is non designed to help the elephants, simply rather to destroy people's reputation with innuendo and misinformation rather than something constructive to help the problem. Let me state quite categorically that the Bricklayer Elephant Park does not have starving or unhealthy elephants at this fourth dimension.

Our family has take been involved in saving elephants since the first time we saw nine elephants standing in the dust of an old, abandoned rice paddy in cardinal Bali, dying from lack of care and starvation, more than 25 years ago. Rather than abusing the owner to satisfy my anger at the situation, I instead decided to purchase the elephants out of my ain money and create a park where they could live out a happy and healthy life and to hopefully breed more to add to this tiny herd of refugees from the island of Sumatra.

Straight afterwards my wife Yanie and I went to Sumatra to see the state of affairs for ourselves. We were shocked at what we found, and I remember looking and thinking, how the hell did it get to such a bad country similar this, where was the authorities assist and why hadn't WWF, Greenpeace, PETA, or 1 of the many other animal activists come to correct this elephant disaster, allow alone even addressing it and bringing this horrendous state of affairs to light.

This Al Jazeera article is not a new story to me, as over the years news of animal mistreatment in Bali has come to the surface on numerous occasions and our park is normally the easier target to option out due to being more high profile and having western management. These 'animal activists are quick to point the finger only actually exercise very little to enhance funds or get involved and provide real help into these problem areas. They all seem to accept their pet projects such every bit whales, orangutans, or some other fluffy animate being, and the multitude of other endangered creatures, which aren't every bit 'cute' or loftier profile are usually thrown by the wayside and ignored.

Past no means am I knocking what they practise, merely that they are very selective and are often nowhere to be seen when things are really bad. For case, I have not seen or heard from even 1 person from any of these organisations since the start of the pandemic, non one, because the truth is that these groups are mostly made up of over-emotional people, who may mean well, but unfortunately much of the time don't see the entire reality of a situation and prefer to assault anyone who doesn't follow in their belief the exact aforementioned style they perceive it. We all think that we know all the solutions, but we don't, because the state of affairs is never truly as simple as black and white, and I accept had to study the elephants and their characteristics and idiosyncrasies for 25 years and I still don't know all the answers, particularly not in a Pandemic situation like this.

But it is important to await at all sides of the story before making assumptions with unresearched ideas and conclusions, anyone tin can do that, and information technology helps little to improve the elephants' lives. The Sumatran elephant is the only critically endangered elephant in the world. It simply lives on one isle and its numbers have dropped to the point where they are one step abroad from extinction with possibly just 800 left in what's left of the forests of Sumatra. Logging, slash and fire, and huge oil palm plantations have devastated the island, leaving only a patchwork of small forests that is unsustainable for non merely the elephants, but also the orangutans, the Sumatran tiger, gibbons, and the Sumatran rhino, just to mention a few.

I don't run into masses of people pouring into Sumatra to voice their concerns there, they would rather take the effortless way and sit backside a desk in the condolement of their own dwelling house or office, and hurl abusive letters at the people who accept tried to do something, while actually contributing nothing but empty words and criticism to a trouble they don't completely understand. Effective criticism and proper discussions are what should happen, not abusive emails and articles that many times are non entirely accurate, badly researched, and can potentially do more than harm than expert.

So let me point out some of the many myths and behavior that accept been spread over the years by activists and counter them with enquiry that has been done past people who work with elephants and are not influenced past emotion or imagination. Firstly, about the Stonemason Elephant Park and a cursory history of it. The park has rescued 24 elephants from the government-run elephant 'concentration' camps in two split up locations in Southern and Central Sumatra, where very sadly the typical life expectancy in these camps was between 3 – seven years only. Since so, over the past 25 years, we take bred 6 babies naturally hither too. The park has a limited surface area and hence has had to develop a unique organisation to go along the elephants happy and healthy with some minor compromises, all approved by international animal welfare specialists.

The Stonemason Elephant Park is role of simply of a pocket-sized handful of elephant parks in Asia, and the only one in Bali, that accept been inspected and received aureate certification from the Asian Captive Elephants Standards (ACES) organization, which have researched and adult a wide array of realistic and scientifically backed systems to sustain, improve, and care for elephants in parks around Asia. In that location are no practices in our park that become confronting their strict rules and procedures, and a big sum of our own family unit's funds was spent to run across the avant-garde criteria for gold certification. No other park in Indonesia has been certified by ACES, not fifty-fifty with a bronze standard. To find out more, please visit their website at elephantstandards.com.

If anyone has any questions in regards to our park and its practices, please visit YouTube and watch our video "All About the Mason Elephant Park in Bali" for answers to our near asked questions over the years with responses from other outside experts of our field. For instance, why is it ok to ride an elephant if done ethically and how does that impact their health, why do captive elephants require tethering from time to time, and how is a wild elephant trained using no brutality or abusive methods, as is suggested by a number of animal activists.

Our park is an open book, we have no 'secret torture areas' or anything to hide, to the extent where visitors tin choose to stay at the lodge and run into how the park is 24 hours a day. Anyone can visit the park and run across for themselves what it's about. Information technology has a comprehensive Sumatran elephant education surface area with photographic and informative displays throughout the park, an elephant museum, an elephant gallery, a theatre, and provides an experience where visitors can get up close and personal with the beautiful elephants, all the while whatsoever of our staff are always more than happy to answer any questions whatsoever.

With all that said, I just wanted to inquire for people to please not bound to conclusions about our family'south park, just considering Al Jazeera publishes a horrific story near the other elephant parks in Bali which have never had whatsoever amalgamation with us whatsoever. Of class, I'm not saying it's not true of what has sadly been happening at these parks here while the island remains absent of its visitors due to the pandemic, all I'm proverb is it'southward not true at our park in Taro.

Our elephants are non starving… all the same. Equally we have poured all our family unit's own savings and funds into the park since simply before this pandemic hit the world, and since then we have taken out farther bank loans to make sure that upward until now the elephants have been cared for to the best of our power. The vet attends each week, and our elephants throughout this entire pandemic accept been well-fed and cared for, with no ribs showing or other signs of ill health. We inquire anyone to come and run across for themselves, don't just take my discussion for information technology, or the word of Al Jazeera.

However, nosotros are now downward to the last of our own funds from our family unit subsequently nearly 2 years of shutdown in Bali. Equally much every bit we didn't want to resort to this, we are at present about to launch a GoFundMe entrada that we hope people will donate towards if they want to help the elephants until this pandemic is over and visitors finally render to our island home. 100% of these donations will directly exist going towards standing to feed and look later our herd of 30 critically endangered Sumatran elephants through a nonprofit foundation that we will be launching soon at savebalielephants.org

Thank you for taking the time to mind to our side of the story, and I hope everyone stays stiff during these incredibly hard times.

Nigel Stonemason

FB: Bricklayer Adventures
IG @masonadventuresbali
www.masonadventures.com

hefleyandelibubled.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.theyakmag.com/balis-elephant-situation/

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