Elephant Nature Park

It’s hard to write about our visit to the Elephant Nature Park just  because it was so amazing and so it’s hard to describe.  The park has evolved from the work of a woman nicknamed “Lek” meaning small (and she really is tiny!).

She grew up in a tribal village where elephants were a part of the family and later when she saw them being mistreated, felt she had to do something to rescue them and with the help of benefactors has been rescuing elephants ever since.  There are only about 3000 elephants left in Thailand – only 1500 in the wild.  Ironically, the domestic elephant trained in logging helped to decimate its own forest habitat.  In 1988, the Government imposed a total logging ban after monsoons created unprecedented flooding and landslides.  Some bright spark finally realised that cutting down all the trees was not going to improve things(!)  This was great news for wild elephants and other forest animals but very bad news for domesticated elephants and their handlers (mahouts) who were suddenly out of a job.

Some elephants were abandoned, some have been taken into the cities to beg, most have been turned into tourist trekking elephants.  The domestic elephant population has plummeted and horrific stories of abuse, malnutrition and accidents abound.  This is mainly because elephants are livestock and therefore have no more rights than cattle.  Their owners can do whatever they want with them.

Lek knows that the future of the elephant has to be tourism, however she would like to see eco-tourism, such as in Africa where you go to see the animals in their natural state, rather than trekking on them all day every day, often cared for by keepers with no knowledge or worse, no care.

We had a fantastic day learning all about the 33 elephants currently at the Park.  All, except the babies born here, have horrible stories of abuse to tell, but thankfully are living a much better life now.  They have formed into “family” groups and have started displaying natural elephant behaviour.  To read all about the elephant herd visit the website.

We got to touch and pat them, feed them fruit including bananas & watermelon (which they really crunch on) and then go in the river with them.  We were allocated to Jokia & Mae Perm  in the river.  Jokia is blind after having rocks slingshot into her eyes and so Mae Perm guides her wherever they go and she feels her way along with her trunk.  As a result, she doesn’t spend very long in the river and seems fairly unsure about the whole thing.  Mae Perm is very protective of her, which we witnessed when Jokia was frightened on the way to the river and Mae Perm turned around and trumpeted and started charging back towards her.  Luckily we were quite a way away!

The little babies were very cute and sometimes very naughty – they are actually 6 and 9 months old – but the lifespan of elephants is similar to people, living up to around 85 if well cared for.  (Mae Perm is 89!)

It was a great day for the kids as they not only got to do some fun stuff but also learned a lot about conservation and unfortunately more about human cruelty.  Please check out our photos and some more video on Youtube.