The Chitwan Elephant Festival is held in Nepal every December. The festival features an array of elephant related entertainment, including something known as ”elephant polo”. I bet you didn’t even know that was a thing and while it looks pretty ‘cute’ at first, you will think otherwise when you learn about the cruelty that hides behind it all. A PETA Asia reporter recently exposed the horrible abuse these animals have to endure. Watch the video and see the suffering in the eyes of these Elephants. It’s heartbreaking and this has to STOP!
The good news is that since hearing from PETA and their affiliates, Renault, MINISO, Carlsberg Group, United Beverage (maker of Pulpy), Kumari Bank, Mega Bank, JGI (maker of Rusian Vodka), Chaudhary Group (maker of Wai Wai noodles), Everest Insurance, and Hotel Seven Star have cut ties with the Chitwan Elephant Festival Festival. However, Mount Everest Group, an advertiser at the festival, has no plans to stop supporting it. Please join PETA in urging the company to make the compassionate decision to stop supporting these cruel games.
Last year, eight companies dropped their support of the King’s Cup Elephant Polo Tournament in Thailand after a PETA Asia eyewitness exposé revealed abuse similar to that documented in Nepal, and the tournament’s organizers ceased their operations in Thailand in 2018, making the Chitwan Elephant Festival the only event in the world in which elephants are shamefully abused for and forced to “play” polo.
As with many things, things aren’t black and white. PETA isn’t ‘all good‘ and The Chitwan National Park, were the Chitwan Elephant Festival is held, a World Heritage Site in 1984, actually hosts about half of Nepal’s elephant population and sponsors a elephant breeding program.
Image by Jonny Lindner from Pixabay