Thailand’s captive elephants face uncertain future

HUAY PAKKOT, Thailand — As Thailand witnessed the departure of foreign tourists in the wake of the COVID-19 virus, another exodus, inextricably linked, was gathering momentum. The country’s elephants, by the hundreds, were going home.

With scores of elephant camps — top destinations for foreign visitors — forced to close or scale down by a ban on international tourism in March 2020, the only viable option for the discharged elephants and their keepers was to return to the villages from which they came. Life there, it was hoped, would be easier, with cheaper access to food and a loving environment born of centuries-old bonds between man and pachyderm.

In one of the largest known elephant migrations in memory, many of the country’s estimated 3,800 captive elephants trudged out of tourist sites ranging from northeastern Surin Province to the beachside towns of Pattaya and Phuket and…