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Published: March 17th 2008
Mudbath playtime
Wrestling in the mud I don't even know where to begin! I spent the last two weeks volunteering at Elephant Nature Park, an elephant sanctuary located in the Mae Taeng Valley, a little over an hour outside of Chiang Mai. I'll try and break down the sections to give a little information before I go into my stint as a volunteer.
About Elephant Nature Park
The park was formed by a Thai woman named Sangduen "Lek" Chailert, "Lek" meaning small in Thai. Lek is this amazing woman who has devoted her entire life to helping elephants. About 20 years ago, Thailand had over 200,000 elephants. In the 1980's, there was massive logging all over the country, which decimated the elephant's habitat. On top of that, due to their massive size and strength, thousands of elephants were used as loggers, which was a brutal and never-ending daily task. In 1989, logging was banned in Thailand, at which point all of these elephants were out of work, many with no home to go back to. Many of the elephants were taken into trekking camps, where they are mistreated and have to live without proper nourishment or exercise. Today there are less
Curious Ele
Checking out the platform at feeding time than 1800 elephants in Thailand. Lek has made it her mission to fight for the rights and the welfare of Asian elephants, and goes all over Thailand, Laos, and Burma to find elephants in need. At this point Lek is a bit of a celebrity in Thailand, so people contact her when they know of an extremely sick or abused elephant, and she goes to their owner, and buys the elephant off of them, and then brings them to park. The park was created about 10 years ago, as a sanctuary for abused elephants, as a place where they can live out the rest of their days well-treated and happy. She started off with only 1 elephant, but now 31 elephants are living at the park, from babies to grandparents in their 80s.
An average day visit to the park
ENP is located right on the river, and covers about 100 acres, with mountains surrounding the property. With 31 elephants, that EACH consume more than 250 lbs of food a day, it's getting quite expensive to run the park. The park makes most of it's money through visitors who come the park. You can come
Ash at feeding time
Serving up those bananas! for a day visit, stay overnight, or volunteer for 2 weeks, as I did. My first day was spent with the normal day visitors, just getting a feel for the park. On the way to the park, we stopped at a fruit market in Chiang Mai, to fill the backs of two pick-up trucks with bags of cucumbers, watermelons, corn, and bananas to feed the elephants that day. Right after we arrived at the park, volunteers swarmed around the food trucks, and began chopping up the watermelons, and dividing the food into huge baskets assigned to each elephant. The elephants know it's food time, and all begin to wander up to the platform, checking out the scene with their trunks. SO cool! They come right up to the main platform, and everyone gets to help feed the elephants. Strangely enough, it's similar to the atmosphere at a normal dinner table: the granny elephant with no teeth has to get the skin peeled off her watermelon so she can eat it, and the area around where the babies eat is covered in food and half chewed bananas by the end of feeding time.
After feeding time, the elephants rest for
Hungry Elephants
"Hey! We want more!" a little bit, and then it's bath time! All the elephants head down to the river, with the visitors close behind. Elephants love playtime, and they all run for the water, and start splashing around and spraying themselves with their trunks. Once they calm down, all the people are allowed to get into the river with buckets and brushes, and help wash the elephants! It's so surreal, you stand in the water next to this two ton beast, who just lies there happily while you splash buckets of water on it. After bath time all the elephants get out for the daily mud bath. Not only is it fun to splash around, but elephants use mud as natural sunblock, so immediately after being cleaned, they set to work covering themselves in mud.
Later in the afternoon, they took us all into the TV room to watch a movie about the plight of the Asian Elephants. I couldn't believe the things that I saw. Even though the elephant is the most revered symbol in Thai culture, they are outrageously mistreated. In the large cities in Thailand, people exploit their elephants by using them as street beggars. At night, they walk
Baby Elephant
The dogs have absolutely no fear of these giant animals their elephants up and down the street, and make money from tourists who want to pose with the elephant. These elephants often have to resort to eating trash on the street, and one of the ways they sense their surroundings is by feeling vibrations in the ground....so working on the city streets makes them incredibly stressed out. The largest elephant at the park, Max, was a street begging elephant, until he was hit by an 18 wheeler truck, at which point his owner sold him to Lek, as he couldn't walk and was useless to him at that point. Most other elephants in Thailand work in trekking camps, where people pay money to ride on their backs. I did this without knowing the background, and will never do it again. Before elephants go into trekking camps, they have to go through a brutal training called the Pajaan. The pajaan is a process where the elephant is chained up in incredibly small quarters, and beaten repeatedly in an effort to break their spirit, and make them obedient. Many of the elephants who refuse to become submissive to their owners die after days of beatings and denial of food. Once they make
it through the pajaan, they are forced to carry people on their back, sometimes all day long without breaks or proper nutrition. The chairs that people sit on are extremely damaging to their spines. Elephants' most sensitive spot is on their massive ears, and many mahouts (elephant trainers), use these horrible poles with spikes on end, and stab the elephant in the ear to get it to obey. The abuse that they have endured is truly heartbreaking. I thought that just because the elephant looks mildly healthy when you ride it, it must be well-treated, but now I know that is not the case. If you, or anyone you know, is going to Thailand, please urge them to avoid supporting any of the elephant riding camps, and instead put their money to a great place like Elephant Nature Park.
A few of my favorite elephants
With 31 elephants at the park, each has it's own story. Some of the lucky ones were brought to the park as babies, and be able to live their whole lives there, never knowing suffering. Some of the unlucky ones have been through intense physical and mental trauma.
Jokia: Jokia
Bath Time!
All the people heading into the river was originally used in logging camps. While working in the logging camps, she became pregnant and forced to work during her entire pregnancy. One day, while dragging logs up a hill, she gave birth while she was working. At the time she was wearing logging chains, and wasn't allowed to go retrieve her baby, and when she was finally allowed to go check on it, it was dead. After this, Jokia refused to work, and in an attempt to force her to work her mahout used a slingshot to shoot rocks at her and blinded her in one eye. After this, Jokia became even more unwilling to work, at which point her mahout stabbed her in her other eye, leaving her completely blind. When Lek found her, she was still being abused, and extremely violent and anxious due to her blind state. Lek bought her and brought her back to the park, where she made friends with an older female elephant named Mae Perm. Mae Perm took Jokia under her wing, and now they are together 24/7. Everywhere Mae Perm goes, Jokia is right behind, feeling along with her trunk. Whenever they are separated for even a short period of
Smooooch!
Nothing like a sloppy kiss from a baby elephant! time, Jokia trumpets loudly and Mae Perm takes off in her direction to sooth her. It's absolutely amazing to see.
Medo: Medo was also originally a logging elephant, and when she was only 10 years old she was injured in a logging accident, which resulted in a badly broken leg that never properly healed. It quickly became clear that she would not be able to work as a logging elephant anymore, and so her owner decided to sell her to a breeder. The new owner chained Medo's front two legs to a tree, and then chained a huge bull male to the same tree. The male bull savagely attacked and mounted her, leaving her with huge injuries, including a dislocated spine and a broken pelvis. Now living at the park, Medo is one of the most recognizable elephants, due to her massive deformities along her back and legs.
Hope: Hope was rescued when he was only a year old, newly orphaned, and severely malnourished without his mother's milk. When Lek rescued him, he was extremely reluctant to accept any contact with humans, and for his first three months at the park, Lek slept next to him, until he
Medo
She has some of the most recognizable injuries at the park finally began to trust human contact. Hope is one of the most inspiring stories of the park. While most mahouts in Thailand use torture and beating to train their elephants, Lek believes elephants can learn through positive reinforcement, and bananas! Now 6, Hope knows all the basic commands that other trained elephants use, and once he is older, Lek will use him to prove that torture is not needed to train elephants. Lek named him Hope, because his upbringing is truly ‘hope for the future of all Thai elephants’. Still, Hope is a teenage boy elephant, and can be really rowdy-he is the only elephant at the park to wear a bell around his neck, so you can always hear him coming!
These are just a few of the incredible tribulations these elephants have been through. Despite their size, these animals have incredible compassion and emotion. Wild elephants live in family groups, and despite the fact that most are not biologically related, many of the elephants here have formed family groups. A number of the babies roam with their mothers, and "adopted aunties". Some of the aunties even begin producing milk for the babies in their family, even if
Doggy feeding time
Feeding nearly 50 dogs at the same time=complete chaos! it is not their actual child, and when the babies are rough-housing too much, they step in to break up the fights.
Getting to see the elephants interact in their family groups was heartwarming. One day, after the mudbaths, fireworks went off in the distance, spooking a few of the babies. They took off running and trumpeting, and the mothers and aunties immediately followed. They rushed to the babies sides, and completely surrounded them-it was amazing to see.
Besides helping elephants, ENP is a veritable sanctuary to all animals. There are nearly 50 dogs that live on the property that Lek has taken in, along with 10-20 cats, cows, and water buffalo. Similar to the elephants, many of these animals were abused or neglected, and many are still warming up to human contact. I loved having all the dogs around, fleas and all! With 50 dogs there was always someone howling or barking during the night, and they were always up for a good belly scratching. With all of these animals and day visitors, it takes nearly 70 people to run the park on a daily basis, including gardeners, mahouts, and guides. There are even a few people
Mother and baby
At 4 years old, the "babies" aren't so small anymore! from Australia, and Michigan (!), who now live at the park full-time.
I can't say enough how amazing this place is. Getting to see the elephants roam free, and being able to be so close to them is just a once in a lifetime experience, one that I will never forget! I think I took about 300 pictures of elephants in my 2 weeks, so here are some of my favorites!
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Jill
non-member comment
Fascinating entry, Alissa. You'll make everyone long to visit Thailand and volunteer their time too. Your photos supplement the text beautifully. Can't wait to see more - and can't wait to see YOU! Soon, j