Asian elephants were domesticated thousands of years ago. Most elephants in Chiang Mai cannot return to the wild due to habitat loss and strict laws. Unlike in Africa, there is no place left for wild elephants in Thailand. They have livestock classification, so it is illegal for them to roam freely in Thailand's jungle. If a company tells you that their elephants are wild, please ask questions.
One of the reasons the Thai elephant population has declined so drastically in the last twenty years is because elephants and mahouts could no longer make a living. This change resulted in elephants begging on the street and illegal logging elephants. We do not want to go backwards. Through ethical elephant tourism, owners can provide a stable home and income for both elephants and mahouts.
Lack of land, human-elephant conflict and poaching make it very dangerous for elephants to be in the jungle in Thailand. Even elephants in conservation centers and camps are not 100 percent free. With all these problems, it is crucial to create the most humane environments possible for captive elephants to live protected and not go extinct. That environment is what we have created at Temple of Elephants.
We value elephant conservation. When you buy an elephant from an abusive situation, you reward the owner with over $60,000 to buy new elephants and traffic them. We rent elephants to break this cycle and care for them at an elephant camp in Chiang Mai.