Is it ethical to ride an elephant?

Published 8 October 2026 · By the TuskWise team

No, according to the best available welfare evidence. Elephants used for rides must be controlled for close contact with tourists every day, which typically involves harsh training, chaining and restraint. World Animal Protection's survey of 2,923 elephants at 220 Asian tourist venues found that 77% lived in poor or unacceptable conditions, and every one of those was at a venue offering rides. Watching elephants in the wild or at an observation only sanctuary is the ethical alternative.

What the largest survey found

The most comprehensive study of elephants in tourism is World Animal Protection's report Taken for a ride, published in 2017. Researchers visited 220 venues in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka and India between late 2014 and mid 2016, covering every venue they could identify in five of those countries and a representative selection in India. They assessed the conditions of 2,923 elephants.

• 77% of the elephants, about three in four, were living in poor or unacceptable conditions, and all of them were at venues offering elephant rides.
• More than 2,000 of the elephants were being used for saddled rides or shows.
• When not giving rides or performing, elephants were typically chained day and night, most of the time on chains less than 3 m long.
• Many were fed poor diets, received limited veterinary care and were kept on concrete floors near loud music, roads or crowds.
• Thailand held about three quarters of the entertainment elephants assessed, and the number of elephants at its tourist venues rose by about 30% between 2010 and 2016 (from 1,688 to 2,198), alongside a doubling of tourist arrivals.

The same report found that only a small minority of venues offered genuinely high welfare conditions, and those did not offer rides or performances.

Why riding causes harm

Control requires harsh training. Asian elephants are not domesticated animals like horses; captive elephants are essentially wild animals that have been tamed. Getting one to accept tourists on its back, all day, on demand, requires it to be dominated and controlled. Welfare organizations describe young elephants being separated from their mothers and put through painful training to break their resistance, followed by lifelong control with bullhooks.

The rest of their lives suffer too. An elephant working rides cannot be allowed to roam with a family group, so it spends the remaining hours chained or confined. Elephants are intensely social and naturally walk and forage for most of the day; the life described in the survey is the opposite. Our behavior page explains how elephants live in the wild.

Physical strain. Welfare groups also raise concerns about elephants carrying heavy seats and several people for hours on hard surfaces, in heat, with little rest.

Risk to people. Captive elephants remain large, powerful animals, and handlers and tourists have been injured or killed in incidents at elephant venues.

Isn't bathing or feeding better?

Many venues have rebranded as "sanctuaries" and swapped rides for bathing, washing or hand feeding sessions. These can look gentler, but the elephant still has to be controlled for close contact with groups of strangers, often many times a day, and the same training and restraint usually lie behind it. World Animal Protection's position is that genuinely elephant friendly venues are observation only. Watching an elephant bathe itself in a river, by choice, is a better experience anyway.

What to do instead

• See wild elephants. National parks in Africa and Asia offer superb elephant viewing from vehicles, boats or platforms. Our ethical viewing guide lists well known places.
• Choose observation only sanctuaries. Use our sanctuary checklist. Look for venues where elephants roam in groups, visitors watch from a distance, and there is no riding, bathing, painting or performing. Independent accreditation, such as from the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries, is a good sign.
• Ask questions. Where did each elephant come from? Are elephants bred or bought? How long are they chained each day? A genuine sanctuary will answer openly.
• Skip photos with baby elephants and any show involving tricks.

What about the mahouts?

Elephant handlers, called mahouts, are often poorly paid and work in hard conditions themselves, as World Animal Protection's report notes. Moving away from rides does not have to mean losing jobs: observation only venues still need skilled people to care for elephants. Choosing those venues helps shift the economics in a direction that is better for elephants and for the people who look after them.

The bottom line

Riding an elephant may feel like a once in a lifetime experience, but the evidence shows it usually depends on a life of restraint for the elephant. With Asian elephants listed as Endangered and fewer than about 52,000 left in the wild, according to the IUCN's 2020 assessment, the best way to enjoy them is to watch them being elephants.