When people think of Thailand, often what comes to mind includes elephants. I mean, King Rama IV did offer to send some elephant to Abraham Lincoln to help the Union fight the Civil War. However, the number of wild elephants in Thailand has dropped from around 100,000 at the turn of the century to between 3,000 and 4,000 today.
Many elephants in Thailand are domesticated, working elephants. In the 80’s, when legal restrictions were placed on logging in Thailand, many mahouts, or elephant caretakers, and their animals were put out of a job, and many turned to begging on the streets. The elephants that remain a part of the logging industry are often overworked and prevented from breeding, as an elephant’s pregnancy lasts nearly 2 years and the baby needs at least three months with the mother.
Seeing the plight of the elephants in Thailand, Sangduen Chailert, known as Lek, opened the Elephant Nature Park in 1996 as a sanctuary for elephants, and an extension of the Save Elephant Foundation.
When Lek was a child, her grandfather, a healer, was paid with an elephant by a man whose life he had saved. She formed a bond and friendship with Thongkum, the elephant, which coupled with the threat of extinction spurred Lek into working as an advocate for the Asian elephants in Thailand.
Save Elephant Foundation has a number of different projects and locations. In Chiang Mai, they operate Elephant Nature Park with a herd of over 40 elephants as well as over 30 rescued dogs. Also in Thailand, in Surin, you can find the Surin Project with close to 10 elephants in that herd. Not limited to just Thailand, in Cambodia, is the Elephant Sanctuary Cambodia.
A True Elephant Sanctuary
Reading through the biographies of the elephants and the events leading to their rescue, you find that many of them were working under terrible conditions, suffered injuries that were not allowed to heal properly, were trained to perform unnatural tricks or used to give rides to tourists under poor conditions.
Part of the traditional way of training an elephant begins with keeping the baby separated from its mother in a cage that is not big enough for them to even turn around and then are beat with sticks; this is called a phajaan or elephant crushing. To get an idea of the extreme brutality of the practice, I suggest searching for the videos that are online. However, it is also clear that these rescued elephants have been able to thrive at the sanctuary that has been provided for them at the various parks.
Additional Work for Elephants
Save Elephant Foundation does more than just provide a sanctuary for elephant to live, they actively rescue elephants and go out to provide veterinary assistance to mahouts.
The annual Surin Elephant Round-Up, while a big tourist draw, is ultimately not that great for the elephants who are forced to attend. For example, no matter where the elephant resides in Thailand, if they were registered in Surin province, they must come back for the event, which can often mean over 8 hours, and in many instances over 16 hours, in transit on the back of a truck. The elephants are forced to perform for the crowds of people, which is an environment that often causes deep stress to the animal. Each year, the Save Elephant Foundation raises money to buy an elephant from a mahout who brings their elephant to the event.
There are a number of ways to experience the work that Save Elephant Foundation does. You can visit Elephant Nature Park in Chiang Mai for a day, or even volunteer there for a week or more focusing either on the elephants or the dogs. You can also volunteer at the Surin Project and at the Elephant Sanctuary Cambodia you can participate in their “Walk with the Herd” program. None of these programs involve riding the elephants and focus on giving these gentle giants a chance to just be elephants.
The photos in this post were taken by fellow Peace Corps Volunteer and friend Carly Collins during her visit to Elephant Nature Park. You can read more about Carly’s experiences here in Thailand on her blog.