A mahout carrying leaves rides an elephant along a street in Amritsar on February 27, 2024. (Photo by Narinder Nanu/AFP Photo)

In this July 5, 2016 photo, a tamed elephant rests in a pool of water by a road in Baduraliya, a village outside Colombo, Sri Lanka. Even as the country cracks down on illegal ownership, the enduring demand for elephants has the government planning to set up its own pool of captive animals to be hired out to temples for ceremonies and maintained with budget funds. (Photo by Eranga Jayawardena/AP Photo)

An elephant decorated with a cloth walk in the annual Nawam Perahera street parade in Colombo February 22, 2016. Over 50 elephants are participating in a street parade for Gangaramaya temple's annual Perahera festival, along with a nightly procession of traditional dancers, fire twirlers and traditional musicians. (Photo by Dinuka Liyanawatte/Reuters)

A Sumatran elephant calf receives medical attention at the Saree elephant conservation centre in Saree, Aceh province on February 15, 2021, following the three week-old pachyderm's rescue in Pidie district after being stuck in mud. (Photo by Chaideer Mahyuddin/AFP Photo)

An elephant with a shackled leg is pictured at the Hanoi Zoo in Hanoi on August 16, 2023. Legs in iron chains and unable to roam freely, the treatment of two elderly elephants at the Hanoi public zoo has drawn outrage from animal lovers across Vietnam. (Photo by Nhac Nguyen/AFP Photo)

The moment baby elephant gets a helping hand to escape the slippery waterhole was caught on camera in the Addo Elephant National Park in the Eastern Cape of South Africa in the last decade of August 2025. (Photo by Anne Laing/Caters News Agency)

A mahout splashes water on his elephant in the river Sabarmati on a hot summer day in Ahmedabad, India, May 20, 2015. (Photo by Amit Dave/Reuters)

An elephant enjoys its back being scrubbed by the keeper on March 1, 1950. (Photo by Fox Photos/Getty Images)