Watch: This video of an elephant doing a headstand leaves netizens concerned

On Wednesday, a Twitter user Morissa Schwartz (@MorissaSchwartz) shared a video that showed an elephant doing a headstand-like move. The elephant pulls its hind legs in the air and supports its massive body on its front legs and head. As the elephant performs this move, a man sprays water at its exposed belly. It appears that the elephants posed like this so that it could get water all over its body. 

In the video, one can hear the crowd of spectators gasping and cheering at the view. However, many netizens commented on the video that the “headstand” move does not look natural and there are chances that the animal was unethically trained to do it to entertain the crowd. 

I did not know 🐘 could do this…pic.twitter.com/Wf19oIB3Ud

— Morissa Schwartz (Dr. Rissy) (@MorissaSchwartz) June 1, 2022

Consider deleting this tweet. You’re getting clicks from posting an animal abuse video. And then consider donating to @SheldrickTrust , who rescues orphan elephants, raises them in a natural environment and returns them to the wild without this kind of abuse.

— 🐝Kat Sheridan 🐝 (@KatSheridan) June 1, 2022

And they should not be doing that.

— Robin Reeder (@robinreeder) June 1, 2022

unfortunately they were “forced” and “trained” to learn how to do that

— Henglgram (@henglgram) June 1, 2022

They don’t do that in the wild. Heartbreaking to see what humans have forced them to do.

— Jan Leighton (@JanLeighton2) June 1, 2022

Elephants can do lots of things once they have been shocked, beaten, starved, chained and suffered all manner of unspeakable torture. Cute and entertaining isn’t it…..

— Kieron F (@kieronf2) June 1, 2022

This will have involved “training”…
Sorry, by training I mean, of course, “abuse”.
Whip or beat an animal hard enough & long enough & you can “train” it to do almost anything… 🐘 💕

— ♡Ka #54♡ (@bfs4always) June 1, 2022

I don’t see this as clever or cute, I just wonder what the poor thing has had to go through to learn than, being trained with a cattle Prod or whipped with a stick, its not natural for an elephant to just do this!

— Mrs G (@geraghty_tanya) June 1, 2022

It’s not by choice — this is not a neat trick the elephant does just because
it’s the result of a wild animal held in captivity and abused for human entertainment

— Cecilia Duffy (@CeceDuffy) June 1, 2022

Commenting on the video, that gathered over 3.7 lakh views, a Twitter user wrote, “I don’t see this as clever or cute, I just wonder what the poor thing has had to go through to learn than, being trained with a cattle Prod or whipped with a stick, its not natural for an elephant to just do this!” 

Another person remarked, “This will have involved “training”…Sorry, by training I mean, of course, “abuse”. Whip or beat an animal hard enough & long enough & you can “train” it to do almost anything… 🐘 💕”