Elephants in Thailand

A thousand elephants threatened by starvation have journeyed through the hills of northern Thailand, making a slow migration home from tourist sites forced shut by the pandemic.    

Home for some of the animals is the northern village of Huay Pakoot, where generations of ethnic Karen mahouts -- or elephant handlers -- have been rearing the giant mammals for four centuries.    

Underfed and chained up for endless hours, many elephants working in Thailand's tourism sector may starve, be sold to zoos or be shifted into the illegal logging trade, campaigners warn, as the coronavirus decimates visitor numbers.    

Separated from their mothers, jabbed with metal hooks and sometimes deprived of food, many Thai elephants are tamed by force before being sold to lucrative tourism sites increasingly advertised as 'sanctuaries' to cruelty-conscious travelers.