Literally everywhere Kim Kardashian goes, scandal seems to follow, and her recent trip to Bali was no different.
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Much like most millennials who visit sacred places and foreign countries, the reality star clearly did not do her research about the ins and outs of Bali, including the fact that a lot of the elephants are treated fairly poorly.
Kardashian shared the following snaps to her Instagram from her recent fam vacay and captioned it:
“Missing Bali and the amazing elephant sanctuary.”
Her post was met with immediate criticism from fans who called her out on the “insensitive” photos in the comments section.
One commentator insisted that the place she had visited was not a real elephant sanctuary and the animals are tortured and beaten.
“Do better research next time, don’t go to fake sanctuaries that chain up elephants and torture/beat them into submission,” the angry fan wrote.
Another fan went on a longer rant, describing what goes down at these “sanctuaries”.
“Kim, I normally don’t leave comments, I just enjoy your posts, but it is important to know that this isn’t an ‘elephant sanctuary’ as indicated with the items on its back, the person sitting on its head and the knife right hand punctured into the elephants head to control its direction,” she wrote.
“A real elephant sanctuary is a place for elephants that have brutally tortured by being used for logging (enslaving elephants to carry 100s of pounds up and down mountains, which shortens their lifespan 50 years at minimum) or elephants brutally tortured for tourist riding and entertainment. The way their ‘owners’ train them is a term translated into English as ‘breaking the spirit’ – it’s horrific. Please look it up.”
She adds, “You see, what’s amazing and unique about elephants, is that their emotional and physiological spectrum is almost identical to a humans, but even more fascinating is their memory is actually way beyond ours. Elephants remember other elephants and individual humans for years, even decades, after they last saw them. And unfortunately their stress cognisance works the same way. And so, in the midst of it all, elephants know exactly what’s happening and are very keen to their torture. Even years later, they will show acute signs of PTSD.”
Concluding, “I know you use your notoriety and platform for good and it’s amazing what you have done, but please, as you know, education is so important and posting something like this is such a disservice to these incredible creatures.”
Despite many similar comments and various reports about the incident, the post still exists on Kim’s page.
