Elephant Nature Park

Hi Guys,

So after a quick stop in Chiang Mai we headed out to do our one week of volunteering at the Elephant Nature Park (ENP). We didn't really know what we were getting ourselves into, but we certainly left with such an amazing experience to look back on. Even as I write this blog, it makes me so happy to think of the time we spent here, and how awesome it is that this place exists. 

We took a 1 1/2 hr bus ride out of Chiang Mai to the sanctuary. On the way we watched a video that explained what a phajaan (pronounced pa-john) ceremony was. It is basically a ceremony carried out over 2-3 days where an elephant is trained to listen to human commands. Some people call it a 'breaking ceremony.' The one we saw on the video was particularly brutal. The juvenile elephant was squeezed into a chute made of  bamboo stakes drove into the ground, deprived of food and water, and every time it tried to struggle was poked with nails, whipped with bamboo, etc. Ergo, if an elephant is broke to ride, it had to suffer a phajaan and every tourist that rides an elephant is supporting this system. That was the message we got at our orientation done by one of the staff members. Later on in the week, chatting with other people involved with the sancutary, I learned not all phajaans are that brutal, most elephants break way easier than that. So the debate of 'to ride or not to ride' is not as simple as a yes or no. If all of the tourists stopped riding elephants, there would be a lot of unemployed elephants all of a sudden, and once domesticated they can't simply be placed back in the jungle in the hopes they will 'figure it out.' Don't get me wrong, I loved being at a place like ENP, I never rode an elephant, and I was glad I didn't. However, there are simply not enough ENPs to satisfy the demand of all the foreigners interested in some form of elephant tourism. A similar phenomenon occured in the late 80's when logging with elephants became illegal. All of a sudden, lots of ele's without jobs and people simply abandoned them because they couldn't afford to feed them. So, I sure don't have the full answer, but I think if people started supporting camps like ENP where no one rides the elephants, they just enjoyed seeing them out roaming, it would be better. If not that, at least support camps that work their elephants less than 8 hours per day, and don't allow pregnant females to give rides. Sadly, these regulations have to be demanded rather than expected. Can you really blame people? A lot of people are scraping by themselves, so a few more hours of work out of their elephants each day could make a real difference financially. So by demanding a better way, and then backing it up with the almighty tourist dollar, this is how you can begin to see real positive change. It was times like this on the trip that I was reminded by how important it is to pay attention to how you are spending your tourism dollars. Are you improving things? Are you making things worse? People are vulnerable in third world countries, their governments don't protect them like ours do. Sorry to get a little off track, but this place got me thinking a lot about the issues surrounding the Asian elephant and the only thing I can say for sure is that there are no easy answers.  

Our digs for the week. There were a lot of spoiled girls on this trip that were coming from fancy hotels in other parts of Thailand, so they thought the place was horrendous. This was much nicer than Jared and I's usual accommodation, so we thought it was great. 

The first morning, we met with one of the vet assistants and started doing morning treatments. The treatment barn is an open air facility with some foot baths sunk into the concrete. One elephant, Sri Prea, is the mother of Navaan, and what's cool about elephants is that fact they will form a group of 2-4 other females that band together to raise the baby elephant with the biological mother. Mom is responsible for nursing, but the other 'nannies' watch the baby and teach it important things. In this case, Sri Prea, the actual mother, receives a foot bath most mornings to treat her long-standing land mine injury. She gets fruit as a treat for standing in the footbath. She also has learned, over time, that if she kicks up a huge fuss and runs away in a pretend drama, the other ladies can come in, sample some fruit from the basket, and so can her son Navaan. This video was capturing a snippet of the morning drama. 

Another cool aspect of the elephant story is the mahout's role in everything. A mahout is like a handler. 1 elephant = 1 mahout. They come to work in the morning and spend every minute following their elephants around. The elephants are free to do what they want, when they want, but the mahouts do supervise them. They take them out of their enclosures in the morning, put them back in at night, that sort of thing. They know the personalities of each elephant, how they get along with each other and try to keep them in groups that they know get along. Some of the younger elephants that were born at this sanctuary never went through a phajaan, and while that's great, they are definitely a handful and keep their mahouts very busy. 

Here is Sri Prea getting treated. She suffered a land mine injury on that foot she has raised. I never knew this before, but elephants are surprisingly poor healers. I don't know if its just because their skin is so thick and very few things in nature could actually puncture their skin, but they will take an insanely long time to heal even a simple skin wound. There are elephants being treated here for wounds they developed years ago that are simply that slow to heal. One of the elephants had an obvious abscess about the size of a grapefruit on it's head, and Erica the resident vet said she wouldn't lance it because it would take forever to heal and wasn't worth it. 

Sri Prea

As you can imagine, with 40 elephants at the park, it calls for a large amount of watermelons 

Each morning we would chop up a few basket fulls. And that was only for a couple elephants!

This was the vet we shadowed for the week, Erica. 

The second night we were there, one of the mahouts noticed his elephant wasn't defecating normally. She was an older gal, and the combination of bad teeth and slowing guts had her a bit constipated. You could liken this to a mild impaction colic in a horse. We gave rectal fluids, as this is the main way to rehydrate an elephant.  She also got a B12 shot and a dose of Banamine. 

Did I mention the place also had about 200 cats, 500 dogs and a herd of 50ish water buffalo? This cat loved cuddling with Jared.............

Water buffalo crossing the river 

Elephant prints!

One of the days we devoted to preparing dewormer balls. It involved peeling an insane amount of bananas, mushing them up and adding bran. This paste was rolled into balls, and dewormer pills were stuffed into the middle. 

A beautiful herb garden that grows food for people and elephants at the park

There were 6 of us that accompanied Erica around for the week. Jared and I, plus four other girls that were all vet nurses from the UK, Australia and Holland. 

Doling out pills into the banana balls. 

Feeding them individually with a dose worked out for their weight 

This guy was kind of a sad case. He had got his leg trapped in a snare out in the jungle. His foot will always be deformed, and here an assistant is tending to the skin wounds. 

On the last day, we went down to the river to see the elephants bathing. The woman on the left is Lek, the founder of ENP. She was born in Northern Thailand in a small village. Her grandfather was a healing shaman for both people and animals. She started rescuing elephants at a young age, and now the sanctuary is up to 40.  

This was our last day. We walked down to the river with Lek, the founder, and a whole passel of elephants. They were all keen to take a bath in the mid-day heat

Elephants bathing  

Remember me mentioning the dewormer balls? Sorry if this is super graphic for some, but looks like the work was worth the effort! 

Our Vet Volunteers group

At the turn of the century, there were around 100,000 elephants in the forests of SE Asia. Now there are maybe 6,000.The major reason for this decline is habitat loss, but the political turmoil in Myanmar/Burma has really not helped because the forest between Thailand and Myanmar has been heavily land mined. Humans in too large of a quantity anywhere really suck. 

A pathetic amount of water compared to what they can do with one squirt of their trunk! 

This poor old gal had two dislocated hips. It happened either from a bull elephant jumping on her too hard during a forced mating, or pulling a load too heavy while logging. Either way, super sad. 

A performance done by some local school kids on our last night. 

If you're left feeling like you want to do something nice for an elephant, make your way over here and throw a few sheckels: http://www.saveelephant.org/donate/ 

Until Next Time!