Why you shouldn't ride elephants

On Thursday, a 43-year-old captive female elephant died in Vietnam. The elephant — named Na Lieng — was forced to work in the tourist industry, giving "holidaymakers" rides on her back. She likely died, Thahn Nien News reported, from exhaustion. Check out for more news about elephants, facts of life.

In March, a 40-year-old captive male elephant also died from severe exhaustion and overwork in the tourism industry, according to local news reports. A 36-year-old male elephant collapsed in January for the same reason: he was found dead with chains still on his front leg. In 2013, two female elephants also died in Vietnam again, from overwork and hunger.

There are a mere 55 captive elephants left in Vietnam and they are literally dropping dead from their suffering. Almost all of them experience stress and exhaustion from overwork by their owners and tourist companies.

Tourists go to Dak Lak region to see and ride elephant. They will give lots of money to the owners, so domestic elephants in Vietnam have to work all day. All owners will bring the elephant into the forest at night and take them to work the next morning. But in the dry season, he adds, the situation gets even more troubling as they grow weak from lack of food.

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Vietnam has just a sliver of the thousands of the some 12,000 (or more) captive elephants in Asia — many of whom struggle in the same desperate reality. Altogether there are approximately 38,000 to 50,000 Asian elephants globally, and they are listed as "endangered" on the IUCN Red List and under Appendix 1 on CITES.

Beyond Vietnam, elephants are used for tourist rides, or "treks," in a jamboree of other nations including India, Sri Lanka, Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia and Thailand, which is arguably the hot spot for elephant tourism in the region.

In 2010, World Animal Protection documented the conditions for captive elephants in Thailand in its report " Wildlife on a Tightrope." The organization surveyed 1,688 captive elephants in 118 venues across the country, most of which offered elephant rides or shows.

According to the report, more than half of those elephants were in terrible conditions. They were bound by "extreme" restraints. They were unable to socialize with other elephants. They did not receive veterinary care. And for those who suggest that the treks instill any kind of conservation ethos, World Animal Protection found only 6 percent of the venues promoted educational components with the treks.Elephants caught from the wild. 

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It's unclear how frequently the "crush" or pit-trap process occurs, but the market for baby elephants in the captive industry is robust.