Wow, what a week we had at Elephant Nature Park, it was busy, fun, entertaining, educational, happy, sad and so much more. We learnt so much about the Asian elephants on the park, in the wild and being used as livestock. We met lots of very interesting people, fellow tourists and workers at the park and their dedication to the animals shone through, especially Lek the founder of the park who has devoted her life to elephants and saving them from hardship. I have always liked elephants as any visitors to my home would know but David is also now a fan.
When we were on poo duty David would often go with the dumper truck to deposit the load onto the compost heap. One of the benefits of this was that you drove through the area the elephants roamed on.
A lot of the elephants on the park have had very sad pasts but can now roam free and in safety. In the photo above the elephant on the left is totally blind, her eyes were damaged by her mahout when she refused to work after she lost her baby. He fired a slingshot at her eyes to get her to move, damaging one of them, the other was damaged when a stick was poked in it when she still refused to move. The elephant on the right befriended her when she arrived and now stays beside her helping her around the park.
I love the elephant that you see above, she suffered a dislocated hip in the past either through a logging accident or forced breeding programme. This led to one of her back legs being shorter than the others so she walks with a definite limp. Just before this picture was taken she was being cheeky helping herself to pumpkins at the kitchen area.
The elephants sheltering from the sun.
One of the babies going to his mum and aunties for protection something had just spooked him, I think it was one of the trucks working close by.
This elephant kept a very close eye on us at one point, a baby was close by, she didn't do anything just stood their majestically.
This elephant had great fun kicking this tyre before sticking his trunk through it, she stood like this for ages. In an earlier blog I mentioned the elephant being annoyed by the dog, this is the elephant and the dog is the white blob by the post.
These elephants were only about thirty steps away from our accommodation. They were fenced off from the buildings but it was lovely to hear them talking to each other during the night. They were also one of the first things we saw in the morning.
The group we were with, a lovely bunch although some were magic, could disappear when hard work was needed and reappear when something fun was happening.
Our guides, we had a very young trainee too, as the schools were off! They were a brilliant bunch and helped to make the week.
I think this is Tilly as you can see she has problems with her back, again it is unclear what happened to cause this. At the park there were a few blind, or partially sighted elephants. There was a deaf elephant whose mahout had to communicate with her through touch. There were elephants with deformed feet due to standing on land mines on the Burmese border, although the feet are now healed and the elephants can walk on them, they would struggle without the sanctuary's help.
Although Asian elephants are endangered, in fact there are less than them than the African elephants, this is not totally recognised as there are what is seen as two types, wild and domestic. Domestic elephants are classed as lifestock and as such have no rights to protection, these elephants go through a horrendous breaking in ritual where they are taken away from their mother at an early age, deprived of food, sleep and beaten until they comply with the people beating them. Some of the elephants at the park arrived very disturbed and showed signs of stress such as pacing and rocking but with time and care they do improve. The mahouts at the park are not allowed to use sticks, beat or pull the ears of their elephants, positive reinforcement is used instead. None of the elephants are ridden either.
On the last night we were treated to a special meal and local children danced for us.
If you are thinking about visiting an Elephant Park I would highly recommend this one, it was a truly wonderful and moving experience.
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