Malaysia and Thailand Winter 2008-9

Jan 2009

Let me introduce the Elephants at the Wildlife Rescue Center. There are four adult females and two babies. They all arrived at the Center already named. The oldest at 60 is Pailin, which means gemstone in Thai. Kiewta (glass eye) acquired her name because she is blind in one eye. Both Kiewta and Somboon (perfect) are 40. Somboon has an infection that is being treated but she doesn't like it. Namphon (rainwater) is 30 and must be kept separate because she fights for dominance with Kiewta. The babies are Soy Tong (gold necklace), a sweet four year old female and Khan Kluah, a 2 1/2 year old trouble maker who came to the center last October.

Somboon was a street elephant who got too old and carried too many tourists. She got hit by a car and has a bum leg as a result. Khan Kluah fell into a drainage ditch and they couldn't get him out so the Center was called and he moved in as the latest resident. The others were persuaded to come to live at the Center with their Mahoots.

All the elephants show evidence of "Pajun", the process by which the elephants are domesticated. It is unspeakably cruel. The elephant is chained and a sling is placed around its neck to prevent it from moving. It is deprived of food and water and is beaten and sometimes even knifed. After 3 to 5 days it is fed and given water and the process is repeated until the elephant looses its spirit and submits. This is bad for elephants bred in captivity but it is even worse for those taken illegally from the wild.

At 6:30 AM the sun has not yet risen but it is time for the volunteers to walk with the Mahouts to retrieve the elephants from where ever they spent the night. The baby elephants stay at the center overnight but the adults are in the forest. The elephants greet each other if they have not been together during the night and greet the volunteers they know. The group ambles back to the center where they will be given their first meal of the day. At the end of the day the process is reversed and the volunteers and mahouts take the elephants to their night resting spot in the forest. This is changed daily so that no one area of the forest gets destroyed by the elephants eating all the leaves and uprooting trees.

Elephants return for the night

eating pineapple leaves

The day that we spent observing the elephants, piles of pineapple leaves were on the menu. I was interested to see how particular the elephants are about their food. Kiewta took a clump of pineapple leaves still attached to the root, put the roots under her foot and detached the tastier leaves which she promptly munched. Other days the elephants get the trunks of banana plants or sugar cane. They may also get fruits such as pineapples or bananas. If Jackfruit is available, they crush the whole huge fruit under their feet to get at the sweet innards.

All the elephants have several meals during the day, so that is a great part of the volunteers' duties. Another important job is cleaning up the mounds of elephant poo and consolidating the elephant compost piles. It is not all walking around with the elephants.

A few times a week the volunteers drive out in a truck to harvest food for the elephants. Pineapple picking is the hardest. The plants must be cut off with a sharp knife close to the ground. You have to have good heavy work gloves and wear long shirts and pants to protect yourself from the sharp leaves. A hat and sunscreen are also recommended as the sun is hot in the open field. Banana plant and sugar cane cutting is a bit easier.

Gathering pineapple stalks

Riding the elephant during its bath

The fun activity of the day is bath time. The adults get bathed about 2 PM in a dammed up section of the lake that faces the Center. The elephants all love their bath time and may even go in themselves to cool off during the day. At the formal bath time, the volunteers either wade into the water or at times, ride on top of the elephant to get close enough to scrub them down. All the volunteers have videos of themselves falling off into the muddy water as the elephants play around at their bath time.

The baby elephants are bathed about 4 PM every day. They just play around like puppies in the water until one or the other has had enough. I took a new volunteer down to see the babies bathe one day. The babies soon came out of the water to see who the new people were. They circled around where we were watching and then returned to their play time in the water. We stayed out of their way for even a small baby is stronger than we are.

Sandy, a volunteer from the US, has been working with the elephants for the last three weeks. She said she thought two weeks was probably an ideal time period. She switches this week to work with the other animals for another month. After getting to know the elephants and their individual personalities, she said she is going to miss interacting with them.