On Thursday - our last day in Thailand - Charlie and I went on an all-day elephant excursion. It was quite possibly the best day of my life.
We booked our excursion with an organization called Elephant Nature Park. This organization is one of multiple elephant conservation efforts in Thailand. The actual Nature Park itself is a massive, 200-acre piece of land that houses something like 100 elephants, 500 dogs, 200 cats, 100 cows, 100 horses... and more. The excursions that go to the actual Park are mostly just observing the elephants, and not really getting to interact with them, because of the massive amounts of animals on that reservation.
So, instead, we booked one of their 30+ "Saddle Off" Project tours. Their "Saddle Off" Project is basically a partnership with elephant owners who decide to retire their elephants from the unnatural and often painful life of performing in shows or giving tourists elephant rides - the owners surrender their elephants to the organization and work with them to have a large piece of land where the elephants can roam free and live their natural life. We went to the project called "Elephant Heaven", where there were two elephants living there - a 22 year old female and a 3 year old female, both retired from performing in a tourist show in Thailand. The 3 year old was separated from her mother when this project opened because the mother's owner didn't want to give her up, but the 22 year old elephant was in the same herd as the mother and therefore has essentially adopted the baby.
The company picked us and another French couple up from our hotels and drove us to the site - about 1.5 hours north of Chiang Mai. On that drive we learned some safety tips about how to interact with elephants, and also learned some interesting facts about them, like:
-They are the third smartest animal, just after chimpanzees and dolphins
-They eat 16 hours a day
-They only sleep for 3-4 hours at a time
-They only digest 40% of their food
-Asian elephants are much less aggressive than African elephants, are smaller than African elephants, and often don't even have tusks, or have very short, nub-like tusks
-They operate in herds, and at the age of around 40 the men often break away from the herd and live the rest of their lives alone, while the females always stay in herds
-They live roughly 80 years
-Most elephants (if living in some sort of human-made reservation) are assigned a "Mahout", which is its primary caretaker. Elephants and Mahouts spend almost 24 hours a day together, and each Mahout usually is assigned an elephant at the beginning of their career and works with the same elephant throughout both their lives
-Elephants emit a low-frequency sound to talk to each other, which human ears can't perceive, and they can sense that sound from over 10 kilometers away through feeling it in the ground via their feet or placing their trunk to the floor.
-In Thailand, it's legal to use elephants for tourism attractions such as animal shows, riding, and begging. There don't seem to be any regulations that control the treatment of the elephants, and usually the elephants are underfed, chained up by their foot (causing injuries), and overall treated so poorly they often have psychological and physical damage. Lots of the elephants adopted by the Elephant Nature Park are injured in some way.
When we got there, we started preparing bananas for the elephants. We could hear their trumpet noises and knew that they were very hungry! We brought buckets of bananas to an area where the elephants had a small bamboo fence in front of them - this was to keep distance at first but to establish trust. Our guide - Emm - kept telling us "food means friends!".
These elephants are super happy and we had an amazing day with them! Check out how happy they were to be fed bananas:
And how happy we were!
Then, we took a walk with them. We kept feeding them bananas, so they stuck real closes to us.
We walked to their bathing area - a big shallow pond - and they both started to spray themselves with the mud to keep cool. Then, the baby elephant fell asleep on this little mound of dirt, and the older elephant (who they called the "Nanny") stood over her. Apparently, that's what mothers do for their babies - stand over them when they nap to provide shade and protection!
The next hour was pretty much dictated by the elephants. Most of the tours this organization gives are like that - the elephants do what they want and we just sort of follow.
They led us over to an area with some shade and lots of grass and started eating (even though they had each just consumed, like, hundreds of bananas!). We watched them eat, pet them, and sometimes pulled some roots up for them and fed them (they like the roots better than the leaves). The Mahouts showed us how to make a little bundle of roots that they would like.
At this point I was pretty blown away by what was going on - we were literally hanging out with elephants! They seemed so happy and content and grateful, I can't really explain why but I could just feel how powerful their gratitude was. It was obvious that they knew they were in a safe environment, free from their past life of pain. The Nanny elephant had a dislocated back leg, and her Mahout said that she doesn't feel any pain from it, and that she was born with it. He also said that it was most likely a birth defect from her mother being under so much stress while pregnant. Both the Nanny and Baby elephant were so incredible to watch. They talked to each other a lot, and clearly had a great relationship.
After they ate a bunch, the baby fell asleep again, and the Nanny got on top of her and kept eating!
The baby sleeping was the cutest thing ever - she would roll up her trunk like a snail shell, and her little tongue kept twitching as she slept. The Nanny kept blowing air and dust on her to keep her cool.
This time, the baby was out cold for almost 20 minutes! We waited til she woke up to walk back towards the main area of the grounds, where the Mahouts took care of them while we ate lunch.
After lunch, they gave us traditional Thai Mahout clothes to wear because we were about to get very messy!
Before the mess, we made elephant rice balls! We smushed together rice, corn, turmeric, bananas, brown sugar, and salt to make a healthy afternoon snack for our elephant friends. We let those sit out in the sun while we fed the elephants another few buckets of bananas (they seriously eat for 16 hours a day!). Then, we led them back to their little pond - only this time, we got to go in with them to give them a bath!!
Then, it was nap time again! The baby fell asleep in the same spot, and the Nanny started covering herself, the baby, and everyone else with dust and mud! Charlie joined in on the dusting while I tried to dodge it:
Then, back to the feeding area where we gave them the rice balls, which they absolutely loved! They started sucking up all the rice into their tusks and then shooting it back into their mouths! We learned that they know the command for "up" and if you say it to them they will open their mouths wide and show you their one giant tooth in the back of their mouth!
After the rice balls, it was time for us to shower and them to continue being amazing creatures. We had to say goodbye, which was so sad. This day was by far the best day of the trip. It was incredible learning about the elephants, infuriating to hear all the hardships they'd faced (and many still face), but so powerful to be there with them to experience them living in their natural habitat, being the incredible animals they are! The organization has many volunteer programs where you can stay for multiple days to help run the sites, and truly that is a possibility for me in the future.
All day I had tears pooling in my eyes - I was so grateful for the chance to experience all of it. I would do it again in a heartbeat.
We booked our excursion with an organization called Elephant Nature Park. This organization is one of multiple elephant conservation efforts in Thailand. The actual Nature Park itself is a massive, 200-acre piece of land that houses something like 100 elephants, 500 dogs, 200 cats, 100 cows, 100 horses... and more. The excursions that go to the actual Park are mostly just observing the elephants, and not really getting to interact with them, because of the massive amounts of animals on that reservation.
So, instead, we booked one of their 30+ "Saddle Off" Project tours. Their "Saddle Off" Project is basically a partnership with elephant owners who decide to retire their elephants from the unnatural and often painful life of performing in shows or giving tourists elephant rides - the owners surrender their elephants to the organization and work with them to have a large piece of land where the elephants can roam free and live their natural life. We went to the project called "Elephant Heaven", where there were two elephants living there - a 22 year old female and a 3 year old female, both retired from performing in a tourist show in Thailand. The 3 year old was separated from her mother when this project opened because the mother's owner didn't want to give her up, but the 22 year old elephant was in the same herd as the mother and therefore has essentially adopted the baby.
The company picked us and another French couple up from our hotels and drove us to the site - about 1.5 hours north of Chiang Mai. On that drive we learned some safety tips about how to interact with elephants, and also learned some interesting facts about them, like:
-They are the third smartest animal, just after chimpanzees and dolphins
-They eat 16 hours a day
-They only sleep for 3-4 hours at a time
-They only digest 40% of their food
-Asian elephants are much less aggressive than African elephants, are smaller than African elephants, and often don't even have tusks, or have very short, nub-like tusks
-They operate in herds, and at the age of around 40 the men often break away from the herd and live the rest of their lives alone, while the females always stay in herds
-They live roughly 80 years
-Most elephants (if living in some sort of human-made reservation) are assigned a "Mahout", which is its primary caretaker. Elephants and Mahouts spend almost 24 hours a day together, and each Mahout usually is assigned an elephant at the beginning of their career and works with the same elephant throughout both their lives
-Elephants emit a low-frequency sound to talk to each other, which human ears can't perceive, and they can sense that sound from over 10 kilometers away through feeling it in the ground via their feet or placing their trunk to the floor.
-In Thailand, it's legal to use elephants for tourism attractions such as animal shows, riding, and begging. There don't seem to be any regulations that control the treatment of the elephants, and usually the elephants are underfed, chained up by their foot (causing injuries), and overall treated so poorly they often have psychological and physical damage. Lots of the elephants adopted by the Elephant Nature Park are injured in some way.
When we got there, we started preparing bananas for the elephants. We could hear their trumpet noises and knew that they were very hungry! We brought buckets of bananas to an area where the elephants had a small bamboo fence in front of them - this was to keep distance at first but to establish trust. Our guide - Emm - kept telling us "food means friends!".
These elephants are super happy and we had an amazing day with them! Check out how happy they were to be fed bananas:
And how happy we were!
Then, we took a walk with them. We kept feeding them bananas, so they stuck real closes to us.
We walked to their bathing area - a big shallow pond - and they both started to spray themselves with the mud to keep cool. Then, the baby elephant fell asleep on this little mound of dirt, and the older elephant (who they called the "Nanny") stood over her. Apparently, that's what mothers do for their babies - stand over them when they nap to provide shade and protection!
The next hour was pretty much dictated by the elephants. Most of the tours this organization gives are like that - the elephants do what they want and we just sort of follow.
They led us over to an area with some shade and lots of grass and started eating (even though they had each just consumed, like, hundreds of bananas!). We watched them eat, pet them, and sometimes pulled some roots up for them and fed them (they like the roots better than the leaves). The Mahouts showed us how to make a little bundle of roots that they would like.
At this point I was pretty blown away by what was going on - we were literally hanging out with elephants! They seemed so happy and content and grateful, I can't really explain why but I could just feel how powerful their gratitude was. It was obvious that they knew they were in a safe environment, free from their past life of pain. The Nanny elephant had a dislocated back leg, and her Mahout said that she doesn't feel any pain from it, and that she was born with it. He also said that it was most likely a birth defect from her mother being under so much stress while pregnant. Both the Nanny and Baby elephant were so incredible to watch. They talked to each other a lot, and clearly had a great relationship.
After they ate a bunch, the baby fell asleep again, and the Nanny got on top of her and kept eating!
The baby sleeping was the cutest thing ever - she would roll up her trunk like a snail shell, and her little tongue kept twitching as she slept. The Nanny kept blowing air and dust on her to keep her cool.
This time, the baby was out cold for almost 20 minutes! We waited til she woke up to walk back towards the main area of the grounds, where the Mahouts took care of them while we ate lunch.
After lunch, they gave us traditional Thai Mahout clothes to wear because we were about to get very messy!
Before the mess, we made elephant rice balls! We smushed together rice, corn, turmeric, bananas, brown sugar, and salt to make a healthy afternoon snack for our elephant friends. We let those sit out in the sun while we fed the elephants another few buckets of bananas (they seriously eat for 16 hours a day!). Then, we led them back to their little pond - only this time, we got to go in with them to give them a bath!!
Then, it was nap time again! The baby fell asleep in the same spot, and the Nanny started covering herself, the baby, and everyone else with dust and mud! Charlie joined in on the dusting while I tried to dodge it:
Then, back to the feeding area where we gave them the rice balls, which they absolutely loved! They started sucking up all the rice into their tusks and then shooting it back into their mouths! We learned that they know the command for "up" and if you say it to them they will open their mouths wide and show you their one giant tooth in the back of their mouth!
After the rice balls, it was time for us to shower and them to continue being amazing creatures. We had to say goodbye, which was so sad. This day was by far the best day of the trip. It was incredible learning about the elephants, infuriating to hear all the hardships they'd faced (and many still face), but so powerful to be there with them to experience them living in their natural habitat, being the incredible animals they are! The organization has many volunteer programs where you can stay for multiple days to help run the sites, and truly that is a possibility for me in the future.
All day I had tears pooling in my eyes - I was so grateful for the chance to experience all of it. I would do it again in a heartbeat.
No comments:
Post a Comment