Imagine ... Being torn from your mother's side, both of you fighting against your oppressors with every ounce of your strength. Though she does not have to kill to feed you, your mother would kill to protect you - or…
Congratulations to Muoy, host of Pamper a Pachyderm! She has rescued her first elephant. As we mentioned in our last Pamper a Pachyderm update, the elephants that Muoy previously leased had been taken back by their owners. Being successful, the…
Tilly was rescued in early March 2011 and just passed her three-year anniversary of life at ENP. She and Mae Kham Puan had been spending lots of time in the ENP jungle behind the mahout village, enjoying the bounty that…
Editor’s Note: We’ve invited our intern, Sofiya, to contribute to Save Elephant Foundation’s blog and document her experiences with some of our projects.
For most of my life elephants and monkeys have been my favorite animals. You can imagine my excitement when I found out I was selected to intern at Save Elephant Foundation here in Chiang Mai, which meant I would be traveling to Thailand where my two favorite animals happily reside.
After a couple days settling into the office I had the opportunity to volunteer at the park. There are several different ways to visit Elephant Nature Park, from day visits and overnight stays to week-long volunteer opportunities. Since I arrived later in the week I missed the general tour and information which week-long volunteers receive at the beginning of their stay. Before I could join the volunteers in their duties, I was scheduled to walk around with the day visitors and familiarize myself with the park grounds as well as catch up on what I had missed.
At 8 a.m. I got picked up at the office with a group of day visitors and we embarked on an hour long ride to the park. In the van we had the opportunity to hear details about the park and were shown a documentary centered around Asian elephants and the park itself. Our day visit guide, Sai, was incredibly knowledgable, friendly and open to every and any question we had about the park and the elephants.
Education and knowledge are the keys to change. This is something we have learned over and over, not just with visitors who come to Thailand and to our projects, but also with other elephant camps.
When Erawan Elephant Retirement Park opened in July, 2013, Save Elephant Foundation was able to take five elephants from trekking camps, street begging and performance shows and move them to a new home … in retirement. Now, almost six months later, we are happy to report that these elephants are enjoying their freedom. This project came about because Lek worked hard to establish relationships with camps in Kanchanaburi and educate them on how to help their elephants lives become better.
An integral part to all of our projects is education that expands beyond just our world of visitors and volunteers. We continue to educate elephant camp owners and hope we can help improve their lives in captivity.
Over the past few years, we have had several camps open next to us at Elephant Nature Park.
The nearby trekking camp with their elephants. This is no longer their world, thanks to the hard work and education they have received from Lek and SEF about how to better their elephants lives.