This article appeared on page 38 of the June/July 2015 issue of Expat Ladies of Bangkok. An online PDF of the magazine can be viewed here: http://www.expatlifeinthailand.com/emagazine-june-july-2015/
Heffalump Heaven: A Week of Transforming Cruelty to Love
I grew up with elephants.
On my walls, that is. I was introduced to the herd as a
toddler; a parading family of repeating patterns. For years they listened in on
bedtime stories, co-hosted sleepovers and kept the identity of the tooth fairy secret.
Then one by one they began to disappear, their territory poached by swelling adolescence
and magazine tear outs of Johnny Depp.
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| Feeding and posing with a 'real- life' herd |
I never gave elephants much thought after that, but somehow
they never forgot about me. Unexpectedly, I found them spying on me in my
apartment in Bangkok; a graffiti style painting, a wood carving on a shelf, a
necklace on my nightstand, a painted umbrella in the corner. They were
everywhere, watching, waiting….
My herd
had returned.
I don’t know how these things work. Is it a calling? The work of Animism? A yearning for simpler days of childhood? Whatever it is, I now find
myself jetting off to an elephant sanctuary in the north of Thailand. For one
week, I’ll be feeding, bathing and caring for abused and orphaned animals. I just wish I could have conjured Johnny Depp
as well.
My fellow volunteers and I are collected from our city
hotels and transferred to the sanctuary. En route we watch a video introducing
us to the plight of Thailand’s elephants and the park’s founder Sangduen ‘Lek’
Chailert. By the time it ends, we’re rolling with excitement as mountains
buckle the horizon.
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| Lek and some of the youngsters |
The Elephant Nature Park sits 60 kilometers outside Chiang
Mai. It’s home to 44 rescued elephants ranging from babies to octogenarians,
each with its own mahout, or handler. Also
onsite is a herd of rescued water buffalo and an adoption center with over 500
dogs and cats.
Elephants are social and matriarchal, forming self-chosen
groups within the herd. Each has best friends they adore and rivals they won’t
mix with. The three males live separately, same as in the wild. All are allowed
to roam free, for some it’s the first time.
We’re greeted by large baskets of fruit and exclamations
that ‘The elephants are coming!’ Three appear on the opposite riverbank. They ramble down a slope and splash through
the current to join us. One is limping badly. Their trunks sniff us out and
wrap around the chunks of watermelon and pumpkins that we offer. They eat the
melons quickly, but drop the squash. Only after the sweeter fruit is gone do
they stamp on the pumpkin, breaking it into bite-sized pieces. Like me as a kid,
they eat their favorite things first.
Lame, and with a back that slopes too sharply, Medo is
central to the group. Her back foot is unnaturally twisted while the opposite
leg swings awkwardly above the ground. An initial logging accident broke her
ankle and left her unfit for work. Needing revenue, her owner put her in a
forced breeding program. When she resisted the bull, he attacked her, dislocating her hip and leaving her crippled. Years later, Lek found her
and brought her to ENP. The other two females in the group recognize Medo’s
disability and now care for her.
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| Bath time |
After feeding, we’re assigned rooms. The accommodations are
simple, twin beds with mosquito nets dangling like princess-style canopies. My
roommate and I open the shutters to discover a friendly view of the elephant shelter
just 15 meters away. I fall asleep to them snuffling and am awakened by an
occasional trumpet.
At orientation, we learn that in 1989, Thailand’s logging
ban coincided with its rise in tourism. Visitors demanded elephant interaction
and many animals used in logging were retrained to perform tricks and wear a
howdah, or riding carriage. Now, tourists expect unnatural activities like
trekking, painting, and playing soccer that harm the animals they come to admire.
Elephants with unsightly injuries are relegated to street begging or forced
breeding programs like Medo’s. Babies too young to be separated from their
mothers are sent to entertain people on crowded streets alone. The elephants become
tools and commodities, subjected to over-work, malnutrition, stress and
aggressive outbursts from abusive mahouts.
Aside from the orphans, all ENP’s
residents are former working elephants, too old and handicapped to provide
further economic value. They are purchased from their owners at what’s become a
rising cost. Mahouts recognize the growth of sanctuaries like ENP and now charge
up to US$20,000 for a disabled animal.
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| Veterinary caseload at ENP - Sa-za is the newest arrival |
Many elephants arrive with ‘mental
problems’ and behavioral
quirks, from years of mistreatment. Faa Sai, whose feet had been chained together for much of her life, spent her first months at the park stiffly hopping up
river banks and down hills. She was unaccustomed to walking naturally and couldn’t
comprehend that her legs were now free.
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| An injury from a landmine |
Other elephants at ENP have suffered broken bones from falls,
car accidents and felled trees, or serious wounds and infections from harnesses
and chains. Some are blind from improper eye care complicated by circus
spotlights, or the punishment of a mahout. Four stepped on landmines. It can take a year
for new arrivals to adjust and trust - some never do, but other members of the
herd provide the best therapy.
As the speaker continues, I grow uneasy. Just three weeks earlier I rode an elephant, teetering
in a howdah as she climbed the mountain trail. We jerked and swayed uncomfortably with each
massive step, frequently sprayed by ‘water’ from her trunk as she attempted to
stay cool in the heat. The experience was anything but majestic.
My gut said it was wrong, but I wasn’t sure why. What I didn’t
realize was the brutality of the training used to tame the elephant, nor the
physical strain of the howdah. Even if I’d walked alongside or ridden bareback it
would have been better. Ironically, the trip was part of a larger NGO organized
excursion promoting eco-tourism. They included the trek as a perk, accepting it
without question, assuming that because ‘everyone
is doing it, it must be ok’. It’s not.
ENP embraces conservation and community
development at all levels. We eat vegetarian meals on an open air platform with
elephants roaming by, the occasional trunk flicks over the railing sniffing for
handouts. Staff feed the leftovers to rescued pigs and tend organic gardens. Straws,
plastic bags, and disposable containers are non-existent.
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| Scrubbing watermelons |
Local women set up massage mats with second floor views of elephants
at play and mahouts carve figurines for added income. Each is paid directly. When
an international hotel offered to upgrade the park with luxury rooms on
condition that Lek eliminated volunteering, she declined. It wasn’t her style.
Volunteers are fundamental and our first task is cleaning
the shelters where the elephants sleep. It’s like mucking a horse stall, except
one the size of a 7-Eleven. There are corn husks for straw and poo balls the
size of cantaloupes. I am shrunk like an ant in a shoe box.
We move on to cutting corn and banana trees, cleaning the
yard and feeding. In the elephant kitchen we unload trucks of melons and squash.
We scrub fruit and become specialists in
making tamarind balls; mixing the gooey fibers with salt and sugar – a heffalump
delight.
Lek invites us on an ‘elephant walk’ to introduce us to the
herd. She is gracious, warm and tiny;
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| Meeting the herd |
dedicating equal attention to guest and
elephant. Six females stand near the
river. They recognize Lek and move towards us. We make room for one that’s
blind and another that’s unpredictable. Lek greets them in her characteristic
squat, as if the animals are the height of cats. They smother her face with the
tips of their trunks.
The blind one is Jokia, rescued from the logging trade. She miscarried
while pulling a tree trunk uphill and was forbidden to check on her baby. Too
distraught to work, her mahout sprayed her with rocks from a slingshot to get
her going. She still refused, even when one hit her eye. Unsuccessful, the
mahout sold her to a new owner with a new strategy. This owner believed that blinding her
completely would make her more dependent and responsive. He stabbed her good
eye with a stick before discovering he was wrong. Neither eye healed.
A tractor drives by and spooks Jokia. She trumpets in alarm.
Mae Perm, Jokia’s best friend and sighted protector, runs to her side. They connect
with trunks extended; one in confusion, the other in calm. Scenes like this
play out regularly as healthier elephants adopt disabled ones to care for their
needs. The pair moves to a mud pit and coat each other in dirt, a natural
sunblock and bug repellent.
Near them is Navaan, a two year old troublemaker. He was
born at the park to a landmine victim with an injured foot. He tosses a deflated exercise ball over his
head, tangles himself in a fire hose and breaks a metal sports goal intended for
staff use. His mother, and the three nanny elephants that help raise him, munch
corn stalks and watch. Tired, he joins them to nurse, then takes off chasing
the park’s dogs - as if pachyderms and canines were everyday friends.
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| Navaan, his mom and nannies |
That night, Lek opens a series of evening activities, but is
sidelined when the dogs hear her voice and rush the meeting room in a buckshot
of howls. Eventually, we settle down to watch a 2002 documentary National
Geographic filmed with Lek. They had been granted access to witness a
phajaan, or training crush, a closely-guarded, centuries’ old tradition deeply
ingrained in Asian working elephant culture. Unlike horses, dogs, or cats,
there is no history of selective breeding with elephants; no cultivation of
preferred traits or less aggressive tendencies. These animals, or their
parents, have come directly from the jungle and are truly wild. Any
‘gentleness’ we experience is a result of the phajaan, where men break a young
elephant’s spirit and force it into submission. Tradition says that elephants
must fear man and the consequences of their own disobedience. The scenes are
shocking. I fight the pressure of tears and involuntarily clasp my mouth in
horror. Someone sobs. Others leave.
Lek knew that she was at risk for exposing the phajaan.
Changing culture means changing economics. Her advocacy efforts threaten both
elephant tourism and illegal logging industries. Despite international awards,
documentaries and global coverage of her conservation efforts (Discovery,
Animal Planet, BBC, CNN and Hillary Clinton), there are many who want her
silenced. Still, she lobbies for animal rights and recently secured Thai legislation
stipulating all elephants over 55 must be retired.
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| Sri Prae receives a foot bath for her injury, plus lots of melons |
The evening talks spark discussion as we work. Can wild
animals be trained without brutality? How? For the park’s veterinarians, treating
an injured 4,000kg animal is dangerous; so risky that some ailments remain
impossible to address. ENP counters this with positive reinforcement training and
encourages the elephants to voluntarily participate in their own treatment. Staff
leverage patience, respect and lots of bananas to show the herd that they now have
a choice. Elephants that willingly present their injuries are rewarded. If their
discomfort becomes too great they can step away and return later. Despite ENP’s
success with this method, it’s unknown if it could be used as a reliable alternative
to the phajaan.
Ethical questions and debatable answers keep coming. Should
elephants continue to work for humans? If
tourism camps close, how do elephants and mahouts earn a living? Are more
sanctuaries needed and how sustainable are they?
The answers are complex. Moving to abolish working elephants
completely feels too idealistic. However, we can improve their treatment and
modify tourism. Walking next to an elephants is more companionable than being
on it, feeding it is more intimate than watching it paint, and bathing it is
more engaging than sport. As tourists, we can use our demand to control the
supply. We can choose where to spend our baht, thus influencing the activities being
offered. We can become more educated, sophisticated travelers, selecting
operators who only promote elephant conservation and positive interactions.
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| A flower symbolically placed in a bull hook hole |
The week is both uplifting and heart-breaking, but we all feel
fulfilled knowing the sanctuary is where humans now work for elephants, where
friendship enables handicaps, and where love triumphs neglect.
As our discussions dissolve, we uncover what truly matters
from our time at the Elephant Nature Park. It’s in the knowledge we gain and
the message we pass on. It’s in us
becoming a voice for the elephants and life-long champions for change. ‘Come in and pet an elephant,’ becomes ‘Come, stand up for its rights.’
Do the melons really need washing and are 14 people required
to shovel poo? No. Probably not. That’s just what gets us in the door.
