Battle over elephant polo on eve of popular Bangkok tournament

It is billed as Bangkok’s Ascot, an event of pomp and pageantry that attracts leading international polo players to the banks of the Chao Praya river for one of the biggest charitable events in south east Asia.

But rather than thoroughbred horses thundering across the pitch, this event is played by competitors riding atop the four-ton might of the Asian elephant in a version of the sport dreamed up by two Britons in 1982.

Supporter of Thailand’s Elephant Polo King’s Cup insist that welfare of the animals is paramount during the tournament and note that that has raised $1 million (£700,000) for projects to protect Asia’s largest land mammal.

But the game has bitterly divided the elephant conservation community, including well-known British figures on both sides of the controversy, since it was first played in Nepal.

And when the elephants are led out on to the pitch for a blessing by Buddhist monks and the opening exhibition match on Thursday, several Thai-based animal wildlife campaigners said they plan to file a lawsuit against the event.

“We consider elephant polo as wildlife exploitation, which under the new animal welfare laws would be a illegal act if it is not part of Thailand's cultural heritage,” said Edwin Wiek, founder of the Wildlife Friends Foundation.

“We intend to file a charge for exploitation if the event takes place. They talk about the funds raised but the reality is that this helps make a lot of money for a major business.”

Fellow activist Lek Chailert, director of Elephant Nature Park rescue and rehabilitation sanctuary in northern Thailand, said: “Elephants are not made for polo. This is just another form of cruelty and exploitation.”

But John Roberts, a British conservationist who organises and umpires the tournament for the upmarket Anantara hotel group, rejects criticisms that also long swirled around the game in the Indian state of Rajasthan.

The animals have been brought from trekking camps in Pattaya, where they are forced to work 12 hours shifts, or the country’s elephant capital of Surin, where they otherwise spend their days chained alone in the sun after their mahouts, or handlers, were banned from street begging in Bangkok.

“Polo is not bad for the elephants and it’s much better than their lives on the streets or working in trekking camps for Chinese tourists in Pattaya,” said Mr Roberts, who runs camps at two hotel resorts as director of the Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation.

“They have a break from that life when they participate in the polo. They are well fed, given essential vitamins and provided with full veterinary checks and care for the duration of the event during a tournament up so each elephant only plays 28 minutes per day - 14 in the morning, 14 in the afternoon.”

Just as important, he emphasised, was that the funds raised would be used to improve the welfare of wild and domesticated elephant population with projects ranging from clinics using elephants in child autism therapy to conservation and mahout training.

This year’s event will involve 10 teams and 40 players, including Asian celebrities, professional horse polo players, New Zealand All-Blacks rugby players and a well-known Thai transgender cabaret team. Mr Roberts said company lawyers were confident that the event did not break Thai law.

Elephant polo is also played in Nepal, its birthplace, and Sri Lanka. But in India, several major luxury hotels announced last year that they would no longer stage tournaments after an earlier court ruling that the activity was cruel.

The debate there also pitched leading figures in the elephant world against each other.

Mark Shand, the late brother of the Duchess of Cornwall and renowned elephant conservationist, was long an enthusiastic supporter of the game and organised competitions. But his Elephant Family charity later severed ties to the events amid the controversy.

Dame Daphne Sheldrick, a British author and conservationist who has dedicated five decades to raising and reintegrating orphaned elephants into the wild, led the battle against what she called a “barbaric” activity.

“It seems inconceivable that the authorities allow the organisers of such events to fool the world that captive elephants actually enjoy being forced to take part in such activities, despite hard evidence to the contrary,” she said.

“Elephants are not designed to play polo and nor should they. All who support this cruel activity contribute to unnecessary suffering of animals that have already suffered enormously from the brutal training techniques they endure which no sane person can call humane.”

The debate about elephant polo comes amid fresh scrutiny about the use of wildlife in tourism activities following the death of a Scottish tourist during a short elephant trek on the Thai holiday island of Koh Samui.

Gareth Crowe was thrown by a male elephant believed to be in musth – or rutting – and then gored and trampled to death after its mahout lost control of the animal.

Critics of elephant polo such as Mr Wiek and Ms Sangduen have warned that the animals used for elephant polo could also rampage, posing a risk to players and spectators.

But Mr Roberts said that the mood of the elephants was carefully monitored, that animals would be withdrawn if needed and no males in musth would participate.

“If I was letting people ride around on the backs of free and happy elephants playing polo just to make some tourist dollars, then it would be hard to justify,” he said.

“But we’re taking elephants that live in very poor and hard conditions, with little of no veterinary care, and we are giving them a break from that and in the process we are raising money for projects to improve the lot of wild and captive elephants.

“I really don’t see a problem with that. I take great pride in the projects it enables me to work on.”