Elephant Nature Park, Chiang Mai, Thailand

The Elephant Nature Park is a sanctuary for over 100 rescued Elephants. It is located in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand. It is also home to over 400 rescued Cats and 500 rescued Street dogs and a number of Buffalo. In fact, its Founder, Lek Chailert, will rescue a fallen fledgling from a tree. Not only is she a world renowned Elephant 'Whisperer', she is simply......an Animal Lover! Such is her remarkable knowledge, the BBC has made a documentary about her and her sanctuary.

Lek and her team work tirelessly to conserve south east Asian Elephant numbers which like all Elephant species, is in decline. In Thailand, Elephants are widely used in tourist performance shows and circuses and, in illegal use in Logging camps. Horrifically, adult females are tethered for a Bull Elephant to rape her. This action often leads to severe and irreparable damage to the back legs of a female Elephant.

A baby Elephant takes milk from its Mother for up to two years and it is around this time that Mahout's will forcibly remove the baby from its Mother to undergo what is called; Phajaan. A ritualistic, 'ceremony' which is nothing less the physical and mental torture intended to break the bond between the Mother and baby and to start the complete dominating control that a Mahout has over the baby Elephant in order that it is compliant, obedient and ready to take instruction for training to perform tricks at performance shows.

Tourists attending these performances feed the perpetual breeding and torture of these majestic creatures. If you give a moments thought to it, its hardly a natural way for the children of our world to observe a largest but yet declining land animal!!

The Covid pandemic whilst offered it offered some respite for the Elephants from doing these shows daily, created a different problem. Their Mahouts struggled to feed them. They could not attend to medical needs and in a number of cases, they turned their Elephants out into the jungles to fend for themselves all the while keeping tabs on their location ready for the time Covid had gone and the tourists started to come back.

Lek Chailert and her team play a vital role. She negotiates with Mahouts to secure the rescue of a senior Elephant or a Mother with her baby. It is a delicate negotiation as you don't want to pay so much that the Mahout can simply go out and buy a younger Elephant and equally, ENP is a charity organisation and not blessed endless funds. Then, there is a matter of transportation and other costs such as veterinary care on arrival at ENP in Chiang Mai.

She also consults with other rescue sanctuaries not only in Thailand but Cambodia and Laos too. Her undying goal would be to see the end of the use of Elephants for tourism performances and logging camps and for their numbers to increase and for us humans to enjoy seeing these magnificent creatures in a safe and natural environment where they can live life in their own herd communities never seeing another chain or bull hook ever again and never being ridden.

I can speak from my own direct experience of having enjoyed a very humbling time in close presence of a small number of rescued Elephants at the Pattaya Elephant Sanctuary, Thailand. Going on a long walk with them even with rescued street dogs coming along on the walk with us. To hear them communicate with each other and play in a natural environment was a lifetime experience. It frankly, is the only way to see such majestic but gentle creatures.

This experience was in February 2020. Shortly after Covid had broken out and Thailand was starting to shut down. Luckily for me, I was the only visitor this day so got to spend my time alone in a relaxed way with such lovely people. I was determined to learn more but what I learned was more horrific than I first thought. I would love to say we could go and stand at the entrance to these animal performance premises and demonstrate to make tourists aware they should not support these places but that simply gets you locked up. Thailand has strict laws about defamatory actions and content. You even need to be careful about giving bad reviews on a restaurant! Don't take my word for it; look up Youtube for negative feedback on these places. It barely exists. Where you can get feedback is on platforms like TripAdvisor but even some of the reviews are complimentary because some folk are simply not 'awake' to the torture behind the scenes.

So in a nutshell, it is the likes of Lek Chailert and other sanctuary Founders to work through a programme of education both with visitors to Thailand but with the Thai government who ultimately, could simply make it illegal for such performance shows to exist and Logging camps to use Elephants.

My visit to Pattaya Elephant sanctuary played are part in the birth of Freddies Friends Foundation. The Elephant Nature Park is now one of our beneficiaries who we donate to and I am visiting both there and Pattaya Elephant sanctuary in February 2023 to do some volunteer work.