On the second of February 2015 after a 20 hour truck ride, a rickety shadow of an elephant arrived to Elephant Nature Park. There have been numerous elephants rescued since the founding of ENP back in 1995, many arriving in…
We have finally said goodbye to the hot and dry season. Each night, the mountiansides were ablaze and the usually fresh air was pungent with the acrid smell of smoke. The moon itself, barely visible through the heavy smog. The…
Often overlooked, 60-something year old Mae Thai — a grandma auntie on the Faa Mai side of our largest family group — has been at Elephant Nature Park since December 2002. She became one of Tong Jaan’s aunties in late 2005, not long after Tong Jaan and Mae Bua Tong’s arrival. She has remained a loyal auntie to Tong Jaan ever since and has helped look after some of the new arrivals as well. Mae Thai’s protective nature sometimes gets the best of her. Though most of her fellow herd members are quite social and friendly with other elephants when they wander over to visit, Mae Thai will often try to chase them away!
Thai (over Dok Mai) shares a precious moment with her family herd.
One of the nicest, most competent and well known mahouts at the Elephant Nature Park is 36-year-old Dam. He is currently the mahout of Navann and Sri Prae. Dam comes from the Shan state of Burma (or Myanmar). About ten percent of our mahouts are Shan, who fled their homeland to escape persecution. Dam has been in Thailand for 15 years and has always worked as a mahout. His wife, Gayna, is also employed by ENP, and works in the kitchen. They have a beautiful 5-year-old daughter, Faa Sai. Dam is linguistically diverse and is fluent in Shan, Burmese, some Chinese, as well as Thai!
Rumbles, roars and chirps erupted at around 12:15 a.m. on August 25th breaking the midnight silence, announcing the arrival of a new born calf. Stirred to consciousness by the vocalizations, bleary eyed ENP staff sprung from their beds. Grabbing flashlights and cameras, they rushed to the elephant shelters to catch a glimpse of the newest member of our herd.
In our last post about Navann and his ever changing line up of doting aunties, Dao Tong had joined the group much to the dismay of Mae Jarunee, who moved off to the sidelines in an act of protest. Faa Mai, Faa Sai, Tong Jaan, even Mae Bua Tong and Chang Yim had been spending lots of time with Navann, causing Mae Keow and Dani to lose their confidence to approach the irresistible young bull. Malai Tong was quite busy between keeping Mae Jarunee company, checking in with Navann and flitting around like the social butterfly that she is catching up with old friends.
Bring the Elephant Home’s (BTEH) fourth annual Bike for Elephants event took place on January 19th and 20th and raised 141,000 THB. Nearly 30 participants cycled more than 100km to help raise funds to develop Elephant Nature Park land across the river. Eventually, Elephant Nature Park plans to open this land up for the elephants to roam free.
We are extremely grateful to BTEH’s Antoinette, Dtik and their team for their amazing efforts and continued dedication to the Asian elephant in Thailand. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!
Deck the hills with banana balls, bundles of cornstalks and trumpets of joy! It’s Christmas day and all is well at Elephant Nature Park. Here are a few highlights from this morning’s action with the herd:
Tong Suk (Jungle Boy) is bringing in the holiday season with a bout of moda musth and sporting slight temporin for the past few days. But never fear, his condition has not yet affected his temper. He is still on the ‘nice list’ cooperating well with his mahout, politely backing up to have his food delivered, even laying down when asked so that his collar could be removed. Thanks to the ever friendly Sao Yai, Tong Suk is rarely lonely and enjoys her company greatly.
Sao Yai is the perfect pal to have around, fitting into the ‘friend with benefits’ category. Mintra has been visiting Tong Suk more often lately and, as they had a mutual crush for a while after Mintra arrived, ‘JB’ is always happy to have her companionship.
Fatty Faa Mai is often quite flirty with our handsome tusker, lingering in his area, before and after the rest of her family has arrived or passed through. She is much too young to be so flirtatious, but it seems that she cannot resist. Besides the flirting, Faa Mai is definitely ‘nice list’ material.