Apart from the wild tiger/rhino/bear/crocodile populations of Chitwan National Park, there seem to be domesticated elephants EVERYWHERE!
It isn’t at all uncommon to pass an elephant going the other way on a walk down the main street in Sauraha village just outside the park. Even on the day that I didn’t make it into the park proper, I think I still saw 6 or 7 elephants throughout the course of the day without even visiting the elephant breeding center!
Did you get a chance to check out how young elephants are trained? What conditions they enjoy, and how they are treated ?
Nope, didn’t make it to the breeding center. From a blog I read within the last few days, though, I’ve seen an argument that any riding of elephants is mistreatment. There was certainly plenty of that going on, so it would be interesting to go back and look a little deeper into their treatment.