eat fresh. live large.
But where do you get your protein? From plants!
Hi, I'm Jo - a plant-based mum/runner/blogger who is trying to spread the word about how awesome plants are - better for you, animals, and the planet! 🐘🌿🥔
But where do you get your protein? From plants!
Hi, I'm Jo - a plant-based mum/runner/blogger who is trying to spread the word about how awesome plants are - better for you, animals, and the planet! 🐘🌿🥔
My husband an I lived in Thailand for two years and during that time we were very fortunate to visit Elephant Nature park in Chiang Mai. The park was founded by a Thai national called Sugduen "Lek" Chailert and provides sanctuary to rescued Asian elephants from around Thailand. Visiting the park for a day was one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had and I felt very privileged to get up close and personal with these amazing animals.
Our day was spent with a dedicated guide who was very knowledgeable about the elephants, he knew all their names and stories. At times it was quite overwhelming hearing the elephants' stories as they were full of abuse, neglect, and torture. Seeing them in the sanctuary of the park was wonderful but thinking about what they had been through before they arrived was truly heart-breaking.
Elephants eat between 150-300 kgs of food a day (all of it plants!) which translates to grazing for the whole day. This can be why working elephants are almost always malnourished, because even if they have enough access to food they don’t have enough time to eat the amount that they need. We fed them a selection of pumpkin, watermelon (the favoutire of all the elephants!), cucumber and other vegetables that were sourced locally from neighbouring farms.
Our morning feeding session was spent with an elephant named Mae Gaeo, a lovely elderly lady who was around 70 years old. She worked for nearly 40 years in the logging industry, first in Thailand and then in Burma after logging was banned in Thailand in 1989. She returned to Thailand after 17 years in Burma and was put to work at a trekking camp. She was too old to work well and was spotted in a round up by the Elephant Nature Park. She arrived at the park with her head and tailbone covered in scabs from being hit repeatedly by her mahout’s hook. Her life has completely changed since arriving at the park and she is now enjoying a wonderful retirement, having the freedom to behave like an elephant for the very first time in her life and getting enough to eat everyday. Her story is typical of domestic elephants in Thailand and hers was one of the least traumatic that we heard. Tales of serious injury from being hit by cars, standing on land-mines, neglect, being overworked, fed drugs to work through the night, and continued abuse were heard all day long.
After feeding time, it was bath time, elephants just love bathing and it was a joy to watch them frolicking in the water, rolling around and enjoying the weightlessness the water offered. We were able to fully participate in this ritual too, wading into the river with them and throwing buckets of water over their backs.
The park also took part of the day to educate us about the plight of elephants in Thailand. We watched a video of the traditional Phajaan breaking ceremony where a young elephant (3 or 4 years old) is locked in a small cage and hit, stabbed and abused for a week or until their will is broken. It was one of the most appalling things I have ever seen, a young baby elephant trying desperately to get out of a wooden cage, his trunk frantically searching for escape or help. No creature should ever be subjected to such horror, ever. Nearly every domesticated elephant in Thailand has experienced this breaking ceremony and some never recover from it, there were more than a few elephants at the park with deep psychological issues that had started with the event of their Phajaan ceremony.
Thankfully the Elephant Nature Park shows us there is a better way. All the elephants in the park are trained using positive reinforcement techniques and they have proven that this is a viable, kind and respectful way to work with an elephant. As baby elephants are born in the park they are raised using this technique and flourish under such loving and encouraging conditions. Faa Mai is a great example of this, she was born in April 2010 and is the first baby to be born to an elephant owned by the park. Her name means ‘new beginning’ in Thai and she represents a new way of life for Asian elephants. It is wonderful to know that she will never, ever have to experience a breaking ceremony and will never be separated from her family.
After my day at the park, I will never look at another elephant the same way again. If you are going to participate in elephant tourism I implore you to do your research first, find out how the elephants are treated and trained before committing to anything and simply do not ride an elephant! More information and the elephants' stories can be found at elephantnaturepark.org
