Using Elephants for Human Benefit - Is There a Line?

The very first tales of human history, oral and written, describe animals being used for human benefit. Durga rides on the back of a lion, Mary and Joseph ride a donkey to Bethlehem, Indian kings observe war on elephants, Inuits strap huskies into sleds to travel. Literal or metaphorical, we are taught through through these kinds of stories that humans have the ability to use animals to make our lives easier and better. Adding this to the belief that humans are the most intelligent and powerful animals on the planet, it seems a natural step of convenience and resourcefulness: to discover the potential usefulness of surrounding organisms and to use them to personal advantage.

Surrounded by relief carvings of war elephants, majestic animals carrying courageous warriors into the battlefield with the best vantage point possible, Angkor Wat is a perfect monument of animal and man working together to victory. Throughout Asia there are festivals which dress elephants in glorious lights and costumes, painting them beautifully so they can be admired and revered with awe by the millions of spectators who turn out to watch them pass. In China, millions of people gape at their skill and balance to be able to lift their entire form into a headstand, engulfed by the carnival atmosphere of circus lights and sounds for an incredible evening of entertainment and wonder. People pay eye watering amounts of money to have a painting by an elephant as a document of their accuracy and socio-emotional intelligence to appreciate art and colours. Paying to see these spectacular sights supports the elephants, keeps them fed, celebrates their intelligence, and ensures generations after us can see these incredible animals doing incredible things.

I visited India in 2013 (did I mention...?) and at the very end of my trip I adventured over to Jaipur to see the famous Amber Fort. The monument is incredible: a huge mass of orange stone with floating gardens and one straight slope leading directly into the Fort accessible only (seemingly) by elephant. Those huge ellies were so happy! They had leftover paint on their trunks from a festival a week or so before, they were draped in colourful cloth to protect them from the sun, and they walked with the baskets on their backs so gracefully and with such ease. They weren't swaying, they weren't stomping - they seemed perfectly content with their tasks. I'm only little, as was my basket partner, so there's no way we made any difference to the elephant - it's like wearing a backpack to a human! The ride was very short, 5-10 minutes, and the elephants all walked in a long line so they're with their herds and their friends all day long. To be honest, the ride was lumpy and uncomfortable, but I rode on the back of an elephant and that's awesome right! It's such a must-do experience, and that's great!

3 years later I paid attention when somebody showed me more.

Meeting the hero I didn't know I had

Hidden under an oversized purple flannel shirt and cowboy hat strides a tiny Thai woman, wellies up to her knees and long black plait swinging from shoulder to shoulder as she makes her way through rich green fields. Suddenly she stops dead in her tracks and disappears from view altogether. "Watch this," comes a voice from the grass, her eyes sparkling above her incredible cheekbones with a mischievous smile. A heavy second passes and the wavelength is tapped. Trunks and tails scrape the clouds as sturdy feet silently carry round, grey bodies towards the intensely relaxed, cross legged figure in front of me, racing forwards with absolutely no indication of slowing down.

Small but mighty

 

Nope not slowing at all

I first learnt about Lek Chailert through National Geographic when my thumb struck a glossy photo of a woman coiled up inside an elephant trunk. "Ooh, nice photos... Hm, that's sad," goes the thought process, "that's a needle in a haystack job" - and on went my day. Refugee crises, famines, despot dictators running countries into the ground, and I had a clarinet lesson in 15 minutes and I still couldn't find my best reeds. Up I jumped and down the mag fell, taking with it the weight of the world's problems and all thoughts of the other side of the mountain.

Mahouting with Medo

Eyes widened. Shivers down spine. 

"Hey guys, Pom wants to talk to you tonight"

SBJ. 

Pom is the manager at ENP. Pom carries an aura of badass. Pom is the lady you move out of the way of before you even know who she is. Pom is the lady who exudes knowledge and experience. Pom is the lady who silences 400 howling dogs with one bark of her own. 

Walking up to the exclusive nursery table, AKA Fort Pom, I became painfully aware of the multiple types of poo on my shirt that day: the standard coating of elephant poop had been peppered with a little bit of dog poop, with limited edition highlighting courtesy of a remarkably productive passing bird. I scrunched my curly hair in an attempt to look slightly better for her, but well aware that I was quite literally just rolling a turd in glitter. In this state I walked towards the small figure dressed in her classic black t-shirt and SnapBack with 'POM' emblazoned on the back, hunched over Mr Mustachio and Dr EvilFluff. Pom is like a Russian babushka doll: such a gentle and kind animal carer contained within a badass lady who is juggling eighteen billion plates simultaneously in order to get shit done.

"Lek has said you may go into the jungle and shadow the mahouts with some of the elephants. You will go in pairs and alternate groups. Look at the relationships, see how the elephants interact, learn their behaviours. Collect radios tomorrow."

This is a huge deal. Huge.

Puppy Love at ENP

Those who knew me before this trip will know that I've got a general tolerance for dogs but I've never been a full on ERRRRRRMAGHERD-WOOSE-A-WOOD-WURL person. I like the idea of dogs and I've always been around them and know that they are inevitably part of my life, and I love the idea of snuggling and playing, but there's always so much shedding and grease and slobber and considerations and poo. Similar to my ideas on children.

The day before I arrived at ENP I refreshed my knowledge of the park, and had forgotten (somehow) that they also accommodate over 400 dogs! Much of their rescue efforts occurred during the terrible 2011 floods in Thailand - so many villages had to be evacuated of humans that they were forced to leave the dogs behind. The ENP team at the time took inflatable dinghys and rescued as many as they could take, bringing them home to the park for them to roam in big runs and receive the medical treatment and love so many of them desperately needed. More recently the ENP generosity and love itself is becoming abused, with owners who are fed up of their animals just dumping them at the gates of the park.Thailand has a terrible reputation for dog cruelty just because they are not highly regarded at all. Much like in England we look at rats and don't think twice about putting down pest poison for them, so too are dogs widely considered in Thailand. I'm not going to preach about the pros and cons of cultural relativity with regard to the respect awarded to and placing of different animals in different societies (although I would love to do research on that), so let's just settle on the fact that for some of the dogs Thailand doesn't want, ENP provides a home with the hope that the dogs will find their forever homes with adoptive families throughout the world.

Elephant special food and care

At ENP we show love in a huge number of ways, but we go full scale Jewish grandmother when it comes to showing love through food. The majority of our ellies are happy destroying corn stalks, grazing the park's grass, having a cheeky watermelon basket and reaching up into the canopy to break branches for the best leaves, but some of them can't.

Om nom nom banana rice balls

Tong Kham and Yai Bua have each faced years of malnutrition and abuse, and came to us in a state of starvation and sickness: both needed to gain 300kgs from their arrival weight, and their health was truly critical. For these situations we prepare rice balls: sticky white rice, salt, and nutrient pellets, all mushed together with tamarind and yellow bananas to make it taste nazz. Each ellie will get a different number of servings throughout the day depending on how much weight they need to gain or how well they take to the rice balls, and their progress is monitored to see how long they'll need these yummy grubs for.

They think it's tasty...

Elephant Invasion!

Do de do de doo, shredding some corn... poot te poot te poo, shredding more corn... Do de do de doo, bagging some corn... Poot te poot de poo, carrying some corn... Do de do de doo...
HOLY MOTHER OF MOLY THERE'S AN ELEPHANT IN THE KITCHEN.

Now what should have gone through my mind next should have been: "there's an elephant who has broken into the kitchen looking for extra food. You are carrying a bag of food. You are heading towards the elephant. You should move the food and yourself out of the nose and eye range of the elephant." 

What actually went through my mind was: "COOOOOOOOOOOL." 

Dani was really going for it, that gal. The human kitchen staff came rushing out to move their motorbikes out of her way, just in time as Dani reached up to the nearby tree and pulled down entire branches exactly where the bikes had been moments earlier as she selected the finest leaves for consumption. She used her trunk to expertly reach for the baskets of rice balls, salads, and watermelons all being prepared for the morning feeding rounds and all of which had been hastily pulled away out of her reach after her first few trunk dives had destroyed the perfectly formed batch of rice for Bou Loi. I wondered why she hadn't put her legs up yet, she could definitely climb onto the platform... 

Elephant enrichment

One of my favourite things about elephants is how hilariously destructive they are. What super precious and protected 800 year old tree? OH you mean my post mud-spray scratching post. NBD. Nope, I haven't seen your brand new motorbike, but let me show you my super awesome nail file - it's got flames up the side!


Ellies are renowned for being intensely intelligent animals. Their social intelligence enables them to remember intricate social ties between herds, recall exact locations of the burials of their relatives, and to recognise the faces of elephants they once bonded with and then were separated from for huge stretches of time. Their physical intelligence matches this, with exceptional fine motor skills which enable them to use their trunks with such dexterity that they can peel an ear of corn one leaf at a time! The very tip of their trunk has so many nerves it's hyper sensitive to touch, allowing elephants to pick up a single thin twig, break it down to ideal size, and then use it to scratch their eyelids with pin point precision and total control. Medo was an absolute boss at this - I'm pretty sure if that stick were an eyeliner pencil she'd put us all to cateye shame. For such a huge animal, it was such a shock to me to see such delicate movements!

Elephant Nature Park: Week Two

Following my incredible first week at ENP I moved onto the second week volunteer programme which was a lot more intense and closer with individual elephants than the first week. 

Week One was a brilliant introduction to ENP and the truly incredible work Lek and her entire team at the park are doing, giving me a taste of how everything clicks together and why this work is so important. Week Two, however, was an incredible experience for being so close to individual elephants, getting a lot more responsibility, and being able to get to know the inside workings of the park a little more.

Ruling the Cinema Spot with my tankard of tea

For the first few days I had an absolutely invaluable opportunity to shadow mahouts with their elephants in the jungle sections of the park which really opened my eyes to the social bonds and communication between elephants. I had never seen such free interaction between ellies and it was so beautiful to be able to observe them enjoying their natural habitat and becoming elephants again, rather than the same environment being their prison and being a slave within it. Read about these trips here!

Medo doing her thang

Elephant Nature Park: Week One

I felt at home as soon as I arrived at the Elephant Nature Park office in Chiang Mai. I knew it was going to be an amazing experience by the first 5 things I encountered through the door:

1. Beautifully helpful, cheerful, and happy staff helping me through check in and registration
2. Free T-shirts (1 for each week you're volunteering)
3. The best banana muffins I've had in a long time which perfectly served my Hobbit-travelling-style food requirements for second breakfast (especially after holding my map upside down when booking my hostel, resulting in an hour long trek across Chiang Mai at 5.30AM on Day 1...)
4. Free water bottles and over the shoulder HOLDERS. I kid you not, this is the best piece of kit I've obtained throughout 3 months of backpacking, and I am going home to make my millions by crocheting similar contraptions ready for the wild demand when Cambridge receives its annual quota of 3 days of summer. 
5. Similarly bleary-eyed volunteers from all over the world who didn't look at me weirdly when I immediately dove into the pile of banana muffins and joined in with my overtired excitement about the bottle holders

3 muffins (ok yes, 5 in the office and 2 for the road don't judge me they were so good and there were lots of them, I was basically just making everyone else feel comfortable enough to dive in too) and 2 cups of tea later I rolled into a minibus and the dream was beginning: I was on my way to Elephant Nature Park for 2 weeks of volunteering with my favourite animals! 

This girl is so much more elegant than I am. Just look at that leg lead.