Xishuangbanna Wild Elephant Valley Tropical Rain Forest Scenic Area — Attraction in Jinghong City

If you have any soul or compassion for animals, do not go here.

This place has two elements:

It provides a genuine protected area for true wild elephants to roam. It is a tourist attraction which exploits suffering rehabilitated elephants.

I saw zero wild elephants on the walk through the reserve, and it's no surprise. Elephants are naturally shy and avoidant of humans, and tour guides have screaming tinny speakers to speak to their groups. It is overcrowded, and if I was an elephant I would have no interest in the noisy gawping humans who have invaded their territory. There are plastic bottles over the forest floor, dropped by tourists from the elevated walkway, and not picked up.

The worst bit is this claims to be a sanctuary but exploits these highly intelligent and emotional creatures. In the information on the way in, it tells of rescuing the creatures from various horrible situations. These are the elephants that remain in the direct "care" of the "sanctuary".

These elephants are paraded, literally in front of very large crowds in noisy environments. At the feeding station, I saw a row of elephants and an opportunity to buy a fruit basket to feed them. As I observed, the elephant clearly had had enough, and attempted to walk away. The mahout shouted at the elephant and it was forced to return to it's place as an overfed tourist attraction.

I saw elephants who were swaying, usually a clear sign of trauma in the elephants who - unbelievably - were being disciplined for their natural trauma response.

Finally, the elephants are made to perform in a circus style with very loud loudspeakers blaring and a gawping crowd of hundreds. If you know about the concept of "crushing" elephants, then the only way these "rescued" elephants would be doing this behaviour is through crushing. They were made to spray water at tourists, and rear on their hind legs, and many other tricks, while the staff member spoke about elephants' "care".

I felt very sad going, and witnessing these majestic animals reduced to the whims of human entertainment. I have lived in China for a while, and while it leads the world in many areas, China's animal welfare standards are poor in comparison to some neighbouring countries, and this place is no exception.

If you have any empathy, do not give your money to this veneer of...

We were there at 09:00 sharp, and there was already a lot of people in the park. Unfortunately we didn’t see any elephants during our visit, but it only means they have somewhere to retreat. At 10:30 the park was full of noisy and misbehaving tourists, and guides with loudspeakers. How sad it was to see all the plastic and garbage, lying along the footpath through the forest. Mass tourism and greed have destroyed this...

(Reviewing based on 2 years ago) I don't know if it's because I read the book "Black Beauty" a few weeks earlier, but the elephant ride place as shown in the cover photo of this Google page looked like they were being put through slave labour and some seemed severely malnourished, compared to the elephants that were roaming...