Phnom Penh - Day 4

---

So enough with the sad stuff Cambodia, show me your awesome. Today I had booked a tour with an organisation called the Wildlife Alliance. The group gathered to meet Marie and Bort at 7.30. We all piled into a beautifully air-conditioned van and set off to the Phnom Tamao Zoo. The zoo itself is state owned but they work with NGO's like the Wildlife Alliance to run the rescue centre. Every animal here has had a bad luck story, which I am finding is typical in Cambodia. But inside the sadness you find the stories of these amazing peeps that overcome insurmountable hurdles to make the lives of these animals the best they can be

Tamao Zoo is open range. It covers an area of 2300ha. About 100ha is dedicated to animal rehabilitation. They are not big on breeding programs, although they do deals with other zoos for endangered animals. Their main aim is to rehabilitate animals to the point where they can be released back into the wild. Unfortunately many of the animals cannot be released because they have been domesticated or are so physically damaged, they would not survive in the wild.

As we pulled into the park we were greeted by the jungle mafia - a tribe of macaque monkeys. These are same little guys were at the monkey temple I saw the other day. As we drove up to the main entrance we also saw deer and jungle ox wandering about freely. We passed through the entrance and disembarked from our van. Bort and Marie took us for a short walk through the forest where we met Lucky the elephant. Lucky was found on the back of a truck as a baby. Her rescuers had no idea where she came from or where her mother might be. So she was brought into the zoo. There she met Mr Sareem who would be her caretaker. She followed him around everywhere like a lost puppy. She even got separation anxiety, so Mr Sareem moved into the zoo to keep her company for two years. Fortunately for Mr Sareem his wife works in the zoo, so he still got to see his family. But what an amazing sacrifice for the well-being of this little elephant.



She is not so little anymore. We got to feed her watermelon, at the end of which we would say arkoun (thank you) and she would bob her head. She is a very polite elephant. We hung out with Lucky in the forest for a while. Because she is human friendly and such a nice girl she is allowed to roam free. The other 3 elephants held by the Wildlife Alliance have had some people issues, so they unfortunately have to stay within the enclosures. The "enclosures" are a one or two acre paddock with all natural surrounds, so it's pretty good. However in the wild these guys spend up to 20 hours a day wandering and grazing in the forest, so the enclosure must be very boring to them. To combat the boredom, their keepers build tyre towers and barrels to hide their food in. Like elephant Kongs.

They had a bull elephant named Chhouk. (Pronounced Chook). Chhouk was a wild elephant who got his foot caught in a snare. He managed to break the cord holding him to the ground, but sadly the nylon cord wrapped around his foot held fast, cutting off circulation. He became one very grumpy ele, which lead to more "people issues". Eventually Wildlife Alliance was called, they spent 10 days in the forrest giving him food and building trust. Then they drugged him. OK that sounds bad but it how else are you going to transport a wild elephant in pain? When they got him back to the rescue centre a thorough vet check revealed necrotic tissue and his foot had to be amputated. He now had a prosthetic leg, or shoes if you will. He has 31 shoes (and socks) which have to be changed two to three times a day. Using positive reinforcement, they trained him to come into the pen, stand next to the steel fence while they do some health checks, then lift his foot into a specially built barrier so they can remove his shoe. Clean and powder his stump and put on hi s new clean shoe. All this using clickers, target training and treats, just like you would train a dog. FYI, Chhouk also kicks off his shoes at night.

From the elephants we moved onto the tiger enclosure. The enclosure was actually built for eight tigers but only one is in residence. They had intended to release her to the wild but DNA testing found that she was actually a mutt, a mix of Indo-chine tiger and Bengal tiger. Which means she's not native to this land and cannot be released. So she will, remain at the zoo, chasing her keepers up and down the fence, which they call a game but looked a lot like prey drive to me.

We then moved onto the nursery. Here they all manner of animals, Hornbill birds, monkeys, gibbons, even a baby Meerkat. Many of these animals had been found in markets or purchased as pets only for the owners to realise they had bitten off more than they could chew. There was even a pair of clouded leopard cubs. An incredibly rare breed found in a bag in a market. Somewhere out there is one very angry mumma leopard. Most of the younger local animals, monkeys, gibbons etc will be introduced to a pack and released to the wild eventuality. The leopards are hopefully going into a breeding program with another zoo but that is quite a delicate operation. Apparently when male clouded leopards don't like a female, they get a bit homicidal. No wonder they're rare. Sadly the bubba meerkat may have to be sold. They don't have the funds to create a purpose buily enclosure for him and exporting him to a zoo outside of Cambodia is a beaurecratic impasse.

The final stop for the day (and the coolest) was in the Monkey enclosure. We got to step into and an enclosure with about 20 macaque monkeysand feed them. The next gang to join the jungle mafia. We all had to remove anything attached to us. Sunglasses, watches, earrings. The monkeys like to grab their treasures and store them in their checks for later. Earnings can get stuck in there and cause quite a problem. We were quickly guided in the gate and seated on tyres and logs. We had to hold out our hands as they were to be serving trays. Our guides had shredded up a bunch of lotus fruit and now they started distributing the fruit onto the serving trays. The little fella decended quickly down to get their food. They would timidly reach up and grab the fruit and run away. At one point one of them jumped into the lap of one of the girls in our party. We were told this is the alpha, only she is allowed to climb on us. Now I don't know if the alpha was really busy or there are a few cheeky monkeys vying for her job, but once it started we alll got used as trees. Maybe she's not quite as alpha as she thinks she is. We weren't allowed to pet them as the keepers don't want them learning human behaviour, but oh how I wanted to. We also had to be careful not to make eye contact in case that was seen as agression. They were so fast and yet so light and gentle when they came up and grabbed the fruit. One of the coolest experiences I've had.

---

Photos

Gibbon
I wants one

Macaque monkeys
I wants all of dem