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Elephant Nature Park
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[Please excuse the formatting for this entry, I'm experiencing a few technical difficulties.]
I just returned to Chiang Mai after a week at the Elephant Nature Park.
It was an incredible life-changing experience. The Elephant Nature
Foundation was started by Sangduen "Lek" Chailert in 1995 with the goal
of saving Asian Elephants from extinction. Their website has tons of
information about the predicament of the Asian Elephant: http://www.elephantnaturefoundation.org/go/foundation. If you love elephants, I strongly encourage you to make a donation or plan a trip to the park.
In 1900 in Thailand there were 100,000 elephants. Today there are only
2100 - 1600 domestic and 500 wild. Before the 1989 logging ban, most
domestic elephants in Thailand worked in the logging business hauling logs up mountains. Today most work in the tourist business. The tourist experience of elephants in
Thailand usually includes any combination of the following: Elephant
rides, trekking with elephants, elephant shows, and/or elephants
begging on the streets of the big cities. What most tourists don't know
is that each of these spectacles is actually the product of severe
animal abuse.
In order to tame the elephants so that they are safe for
contact with tourists, the elephants are forced through Phajaan. The
name Phajaan comes from a hill tribe ritual in which a shaman separates
two spirits. During Phajaan the elephants are separated from their own
spirits and forced into submission. They spend many months chained in a
cage while the Mahouts poke them with nails and other sharp objects.
Many elephants die as a result of this "training" ritual. The majority
of the elephants at the Elephant Nature Park were rescued after
sustaining life threatening injuries from Phajaan. While the elephants
are now in a much better place, most have permanent physical and mental
injuries, including blindness, broken backs or legs, abscesses, and post
traumatic stress.
One of the most heartbreaking stories from the park is the story of an
elephant named Jokia. Jokia was raised as a logging elephant. After the
1989 logging ban Jokia's family could no longer afford her upkeep and
so they sold her to an illegal logging camp. In the logging camp a
pregnant Jokia was forced to work through her entire pregnancy, chained
and heaving logs uphill. When she gave birth, Jokia was working and the
baby slid down the mountain. Jokia was not allowed to stop working.
When she was finally allowed to see the baby it was dead. After the
death of her baby, Jokia refused to work. In an effort to force her back
to work, her mahout used a slingshot to shoot out one of her eyes.
After this Jokia became very angry and hit her owner. Jokia's owner
thought that a completely blind elephant might be more submissive and
so he used a bow and arrow to shoot out her other eye.
When Lek rescued Jokia she was covered with infected wounds and scars.
Lek brought Jokia back to the park to begin a long healing process. One
of the other elephants at the park, Mae Perm, recognized that Jokia was
blind and was therefore having trouble adjusting to life at the park.
Mae Perm took it upon herself to become Jokia's best friend and guide,
leading her to food at feeding time and to the river at bathing time.
While I was at the camp I never once saw Jokia without Mae Perm by her
side or visa versa.
My week at the Elephant Nature Park was a wonderful combination of good
friends, elephants, intense hard labor, and education. Daily life at
the park can be summarized by the fact that elephants eat about 300
pounds of food a day and only digest 60% of what they eat. Mornings
were spent shoveling shit: Elephant, buffalo, dog, and cat. Most of you
know that I suffer from acute shitophobia and I think this may have
been the final stage in working through my fear. After the shit was
cleaned up we picked up our machetes and took to the fields, chopping
corn and grass. Chopping corn with a machete is probably one of the
most gratifying jobs I have ever performed. I hope to find an outlet for
my newly honed machete skills when I return to the US. I also
hope that I am never again asked to do anything involving shit and a
shovel.
The highlight of the week was the trip to Elephant Haven, also ominously
dubbed as Elephant Heaven. Elephant Heaven is a small camp on top of a
mountain near the park. At the park the elephants are regulated to a
controlled environment. The weekly trips to Elephant Heaven give the
elephants an opportunity to roam free. I made the trip to Elephant
Heaven on Thursday evening, accompanied by Mae Perm, Jokia, Hope,
Somboon and their mahouts. After dinner, the mahouts asked if we would
like to help them check on the elephants. I assumed that this would
entail a quick walk around the camp, perhaps with some sort of whistle.
Instead I found myself walking up a mountain in the dark, following
elephant footprints and a mahout who's only English phrase was "Oh my
god!". Eventually we stumbled upon Mae Perm and Jokia, but we still
needed to find Hope. At one point I was walking in between Jokia and
Mae Perm with no mahout in sight. Jokia suddenly started sliding down
the mountain towards me and I had nowhere to go except to back up into
Mae Perm. An elephant's behind has never looked so big. Leading up to
my trip I had several paranoid visions of the dangers that might befall
me in SE Asia, but I must have overlooked the "Elephant Sandwich"
threat. I'm glad I escaped without any injuries beause my insurance
claim form might have sounded a bit suspect: "Well, I was following a
blind elephant up a jungle mountain in the dark..."
I was sad to leave the park and say goodbye to all my new friends, but
I'm also super excited for my next adventure. In a few hours I will be
flying to the Northern city of Mae Hung Son. My original plan was to
embark on a week long hill trek out of Mae Hung Son, but I don't think
I can stand to be away from a TV for the election.
Where I stayed:
Elephant Nature Park
Latest Comments (3)
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The elephants (reply)
Nov 26, 2008 23:04 EST by fredarnstein
Your description of the elephant torture was one of the most depressing and infuriating things I ever read. But I'm glad you talked about it. I would never have imagined otherwise. So glad you went there.
Fred
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elephants (reply)
Nov 8, 2008 10:18 EST by ramseymd
dear beckysan,
I loved reading your journal about meeting the elephants. They are such wonderful animals. I'm so glad that there are good people who are trying to save them.
Your photos were great to see. Of course the elephants love you!
Becky
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