Elephant polo history

[Guest guest]

Contrary to the impression many of the people on this list

seem to have, elephant polo has caught on about like leaden blimps,

and has no more promising an economic future.

 

Elephant polo began in Nepal in 1982, as an attempt to

create a tourist attraction, and was introduced to Thailand in 2001,

where it hardly caught on at all, contrary to widespread impression

in India.

 

The 2004 Thai world tournament roster listed 16 teams, but

several of them had no listed players, and the World Elephant Polo

Association web site does not list a 2005 or 2006 world tournament,

either in Thailand or anywhere else.

 

The 2007 championship in Sri Lanka in January is expected to

involve only eight teams--and so far, only a few of them have

actually materialized.

 

All of the existing teams are heavily subsidized by the

participants. Nobody makes money at it. Teams pay $6,000 each to

enter. That includes renting the use of the elephants for the

day--they don't bring their own.

 

No one televises elephant polo, no one bets on it, and fans

do not exactly besiege the stadiums to see it played.

 

Everywhere elephant polo is played, it is basically just

another of many attempts to find some use for captive elephants who

otherwise have no work at all. Elephants are captured (like wild

horses here in the U.S.) not because there is work for them, but

because they are the losers in competition with humans for use of

habitat.

 

I have a research assistant, Cathy Czapla, who has helped

me in various capacities since 1980. Her job, seven days a week,

is scanning the online editions of every major English-language

newspaper in the world and forwarding to me about 50-100 items of

interest.

 

In the past two years Cathy has located only five items of

mainstream news coverage of elephant polo, four from India and one

from Thailand--but we have collected more than 30 items generated by

people who were protesting against it, none of whom appear to have

ever actually seen an elephant polo match.

 

In other words, the most successful publicists for elephant

polo are the opponents.

 

 

 

--

Merritt Clifton

Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE

P.O. Box 960

Clinton, WA 98236

 

Telephone: 360-579-2505

Fax: 360-579-2575

E-mail: anmlpepl

Web: www.animalpeoplenews.org

 

[ANIMAL PEOPLE is the leading independent newspaper providing

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