This alert is no longer active, but here for reference. Animals still need your help.

The fun and games of CBS reality competition show The Amazing Race have taken a dark turn as contestants were shown riding on elephants’ backs. CBS must know that elephant rides are often the product of extreme animal cruelty including kidnap, full-body immobilization, and beatings with sharp hooks. Tell CBS that using and abusing elephants is never acceptable!

On an episode which aired in late April 2019, contestants were made to ride elephants in Laos as part of their challenge. The show not only glorified using elephants as transportation and as props for entertainment, it entirely glossed over the heartbreaking process commonly used to dominate elephants to accept humans upon their backs.

For elephants to become submissive to humans, they are often forced to endure what is commonly known as “crushing”—a process by which young elephants are tortured in order to break their spirits. Crushing is most often done to wild-caught elephants, many of whom have witnessed the murder of their families before their own eyes.

The process of crushing involves restraining an elephant in a stall or cage until they cannot move at all. The elephant is then verbally assaulted and sometimes beaten with a stick with nails in it, or a bullhook—a cruel weapon still used by some U.S. zoos despite bans in numerous cities and states. Many elephants bear the physical and emotional scars their entire lives.

While they may not realize it, every single person who rides upon an elephant’s back condones the cruel breaking of elephants, regardless of whether or not that particular elephant has been tortured through a crush. Any support of this cruel industry condones the domination of elephants, which we must reject entirely!

Please tell the CBS producers that depicting such cruelty is unacceptable. Ask that they make a policy to never use wild animals as props, and issue a progressive statement on respecting elephants.

What You Can Do:

This alert is no longer active, but here for reference. Animals still need your help.