Hi everyone, I wanted to give you a huge update about the other side of the world. 

A MAJOR tourist attraction in Cambodia is banning it's elephant rides, and will be relocating the elephants to live out the rest of their lives in the their natural habitat. This is huge news, and an amazing step in the right direction for Asia's elephant tourism. Hopefully this will spur a chain reaction throughout Cambodia itself as well as the rest of Asia. 

I think it is sad that in a country like Cambodia where elephant tourism makes up a huge portion of the tourist attraction, they are still doing what's right for the elephants while our own country does not. African Lion Safari still offers elephant rides at the facility. It had now closed for the season, but next year, and the year after, and so on they will still be offering elephant rides unless we put enough pressure on them to stop.

It has been over a year since this petition started and Trish Gerth has never answered to this once. Not once. As some of you may remember the only time I actually managed to communicate with her was when I went to African Lion Safari last September and by chance found her on the property. It was a brief exchange in which she said she did not have the time to sit down with me and instead took my binder of research regarding the health concerns and impact on wild populations had due to the rides. Whether or not she actually bothered to read it is anyone's guess. 

I believe the answer is to ask our government to instate regulations in relation to the care of elephants within Canada. It's difficult to put enough pressure on a privately owned facility, but they do have to abide by law. I know that CAZA (Canadian Accredited Zoos and Aquariums) was looking into changing their requirements for accreditation in relation to elephant rides however it seems that it never ended up changing, due to African Lion Safari still being CAZA accredited. 

Thank you all so much for continuing to support this petition and standing up for the elephants. 

As always please remember to share the petition, it truly helps so much. Just knowing that over 40,000 people will never ride an elephant is a huge relief to me. I have seen so many comments that were along the lines of 'I never knew about this, and now I will never ride an elephant/  never ride one again'. This in itself is huge. 

If you would like to look at the actual article you can google 'Cambodia bans elephant rides at Angkor Wat'