We request YouTube urgently prohibits the uploading of perahera video footage that includes elephants.

Perahera’s are cultural festive processions which take place in Sri Lanka, each temple generally holds its own perahera annually. Each individual perahera procession is held over anything between 1 and 11 consecutive days.

In recent times captive elephants are commonly used as part of the procession despite this having no basis in Buddhism.

Nowadays, we are seeing more temples utilising elephants or using more elephants in their perahera. This phenomenon is driven by social media postings especially on YouTube and the increasing desire of the temples to monetise the perahera. There is even competition among temples to have the most elephants and the best YouTube productions.

Without exception elephants utilised in the perahera lead miserable deprived lives, they are trained to walk in the perahera and become submissive to man using extreme brutality, further they spend their lifetimes deprived of almost all natural & instinctive behaviours and are often denied even basic veterinary care.

 In addition to this the participation in the perahera itself is a traumatic experience for elephants, they are covered head to toe in heavy cloths which inhibit their natural body temperature regulation function from working correctly. The extreme noise of music, drums, whips, firecrackers, and the crowds for a creature with exceptional hearing abilities is highly disturbing. In addition to this they are often surrounded by fire torches which elephants are naturally fearful of.

The sheer anxiety elephants walking in the perahera are subjected to is exemplified by the extreme stereotypical behaviours (Rhythmic swaying) displayed during the parades, younger participating elephants are regularly seen self-soothing by sucking their own trunks in the same way as a human child would suck its thumb.

Many of the elephants parading have also been captured from the wild as calves some illegally!

Asian elephants are an endangered species and to have any hope of their continued survival people must harbour a desire to protect them. Seeing elephants ‘dressed up’ & paraded as mere objects of human entertainment has an opposing effect and instead affords the impression that elephants are mere objects here only for our entertainment. The fact more elephants are killed per annum in Sri Lanka than anywhere else despite having a relatively small wild elephant population backs up this view.