Currently the ENP has 41 elephants (3 male bulls; 2 baby
boys; and the rest female). The babies and females are basically free to roam
the grounds during the day, although the mahouts have a routine with them to
assure visitors have a chance to interact with the elephants. So feeding and bathing times are pretty consistent,
but the family groups different. There are put in pens at night, although I’m
not sure if it is all of them. The 3 bulls are kept confined in a very large
outdoor enclosure, because they can be mean, unpredictable and at least one of
them has killed before. We were told by Jen not to get too close to them
because sometimes they pick up rocks and throw them at people. We couldn’t tell
if he was kidding or telling the truth because he had “lied” before, like the
time we went to visit the local temple. We had seen some guinea fowl on the
grounds and when we climbed the stairs to the pagoda, they showed up at the
top. When we were walking back down, the birds were following us and someone
asked if they could fly. Jen said that they couldn’t and not 10 seconds later,
they took to the air and flew the rest of the way down. It was more like they were slowly falling
following the downward slope of the stairs. We all laughed so hard; timing is
everything in comedy. They really don’t fly like real birds fly. They fly more
like chickens who can take to the air for short distances to elude capture, but
can’t sustain long term flight. So when
he told us the elephants threw rocks at people, we were skeptical. Anyway, we
went to see the bulls and were standing a good distance away, when sure enough,
one of the animals picked up a rock (more like a small pebble), threw it
(actually shot it out his trunk like a pea shooter) and hit me on a bounce in
the leg. Again everyone laughed and the mahout who was standing behind me
picked up the rock and handed it to me. I brought it home as a souvenir.
Someone asked me if you get to interact with the elephants
and yes you do, but not as much as you might think. You can’t get close to all
of them because some females, like the bulls, are unpredictable due to their
years of abuse. You also can’t get close to the babies because the mothers and
nannies are very protective and automatically think you are harming the baby. However, we had numerous interactions with
elephants; feeding them, bathing them (throwing buckets of water on them while
standing in the river), and meeting with them and their mahouts as we walked
around the park. The real point of the experience was to watch and learn about
elephants and their behavior. For example we learned that you can tell older elephants
from younger elephants by how much there temples have sunken in. Not the exact
age, but younger elephants have a more rounded head and as they age, they
temples shirk and become more concave. In the older elephants it can be quite
dramatic. Another thing is that they are not one giant flock, but live in
groups or families. And like any social group, you must be accepted. When a new
elephant is brought into the park, it takes a little while for them to find a
group that will accept them. Elephants are matriarchal and babies are always
wanted by the groups. A couple of babies (although some are now grown) were
born in the park (accidents did happen) or were purchased separately/with the
mother. In addition to having a mother, they all have nannies. Nannies are just
other females who take care of the babies. They can provide milk upwards to the
age 65. Also some of the blinded elephants have nannies or more like BFF’s who
watch over them. Like the babies, you never want to get between a blind
elephant and their protector. It’s very touching to watch when the reunite. The
BFF will gently stroke the blind elephant providing reassurance that everything
is okay.
Yes, some of the elephants are blind or more appropriately
have been blinded in one or both eyes by their previous owners. An elephant
with a broken back from forced breeding. There are also elephants that had
broken legs which have healed incorrectly so they walk with a limp, and there are
at least two elephants that have stepped on landmines. The mountainous jungle
between Thailand and Burma is heavily laden with landmines and is an area
worked by elephants in the logging industry (legal or otherwise). It’s pretty
amazing that an elephant can step on a landmine and not have its leg completely
blown off, however; it does mangle the bottom of the foot. We saw the vet
cleaning out one of the wounded with antiseptic and a toothbrush.
In addition to the elephants, the park houses over 400 dogs
and 200 cats. You can volunteer to take care of them too. Some of us would walk
dogs during our free times. We might walk 20, which is obviously a small number
when compared to the total, but the caretakers of the dogs were very
appreciative. Most of the animals are penned. They even have a pen of just dogs
with paralyzed hind legs. They made the floor real slippery so the dogs can
easily drag themselves around. I love dogs, but this might be going too far. Then
again, I am not Buddhist, so maybe there isn’t a line. There were dogs and cats
roaming everywhere… and I mean everywhere. On chairs, on tables, in trees, following
us while we worked, chasing elephants, outside our doors at night and one even
found his way into our room. Earlier in the week Katie had said she had awoken
and heard something running in their room. She didn’t get up, but in the morning
found a dead rat floating in the large bucket of water (don’t ask, we all had
them) in their bathroom. So later in the week when I awoke heard footsteps in
our room I thought it was the same, but it was too dark to see and I certainly
wasn’t going to get up and investigate. When I finally woke up in the morning
and turned on my headlamp, I saw the dog, who always was outside our door,
inside our room. We couldn’t figure out when he got in. We know he didn’t enter
when we retired for the evening, so Collin thinks he may have entered in the
afternoon while he was showering and he didn’t see him when he locked the door
to leave. Collin also tried to break up a dog fight during the week. It was a
big mistake, because one of the dogs bit him; broke the skin and drew blood. It
looked okay by the time we left, but it could have been worse.
A couple other things we did. Jen took us to visit a local
temple. That’s where we saw the guinea fowl. We had to cross a rickety bridge
over the river to get there, but we could have just as easily waded across
since it was the dry season and the river was about knee deep. I know this because some of us went tubing on
the river. Jen drove us upstream a ways and it took about twenty minutes to gently
and slowly float back to the ENP. The river does have white water rafting even
further upstream and we saw many rafts coming down. It didn’t look too rough
although Jen said about four months earlier, during the rainy season, one of
the raft tour guides died after getting sucked under and held against the
rocks. The second time we went, we asked him to take us a little further
upstream so we could experience more of the rapids. It was a little more
exciting, but not dangerous.
Okay, so that ends my story. If you want any more details,
please give me a call. If you ever get to this area, I would certainly
recommend a visit to the Elephant Nature Park, maybe not as a weeklong
volunteer, but as a day tripper or overnighter. And if there is one message I
can leave you with, it’s this: Elephants are wonderful, beautiful, loving
creatures. Treat them with respect.
Until next time, Thanks and safe travels.
norb
“Life is short, Do what you love”
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