In January, I had the incredible opportunity to travel to Thailand and work with elephants. Many of you followed my adventures during my time there but some of you were asking more about it. So I thought I’d give a more thorough explanation of why I went and what is was like to volunteer at Elephant Nature Park in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

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Thailand has a long history connected to Asian elephants. Elephants are a spiritual symbol to the Hindu & Buddhist religion, and served a role in battle as Thai people protected their land over the years. However, this utilization of the elephant escalated into use & abuse. Nowadays, the elephant seems to no longer be respected by the culture, as many of them are being forced into tourism, used in illegal logging, and are forcefully bred. This has ultimately led to misrepresentation of the species as well as its endangerment. According to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the population of Asian elephants today is less than 50,000.

It has become very publicized that elephant riding is not humane. However, there is still little being said about the rest of the elephant trade. Every elephant used in tourism is taken from their mothers (in which case most mothers are killed), trained to do things such as perform and paint, and they are forced to allow tourists to feed, ride and pet them. Once old enough, some elephants are even forced to breed so that more elephants can be trained or so that the babies can be sold for profit. Elephants are also used in illegal logging to drag cut down trees across the mountainous forests, and continue all day until they collapse or sometimes die. And although not as common anymore, Asian elephants are still being poached for their hides and tusks. This hugely contributes to the decline in the Asian elephant population across the world. Many people may think some of this seems like no big deal, as elephants are massive and strong animals, which would seem to make sense as to why they are used for such purposes. However, we forget that Thailand is a hot & humid country, so dragging trees all day or carrying people on their backs all day is quite exhausting. Each kilogram of weight matters. No breaks, no stopping, with little food and water. We couldn’t work all day in that heat like this! How can we expect elephants to?

Unfortunately, the elephant trade is not only occurring in Thailand. Although India, Vietnam, and Myanmar have banned capture of elephants to conserve their wild herds, Myanmar still captures elephants for the timber industry or illegal wildlife trade. So though there are more actions being taken to preserve this species, the lack of enforcement is still allowing such illegal practices.

All over Southeast Asia, there is a practice used to ‘domesticate’ elephants after they are captured from the wild. This practice is known as phajaan, which literally translates to “crush the soul”. Many of the elephants which undergo phajaan are actually babies which have been taken from their mothers. This is because it is easiest to domesticate the elephants when they are young, and it also means they will have their entire life to work in the tourism industry, or even be sold into another illegal trade. What phajaan entails is tying up the elephant to a cage or crush using rope and/or chains. The elephant is left in this crush without food or water for DAYS to WEEKS. During this time, they are beaten, stabbed with a hook, and jumped on. to try get the elephants to follow human commands so they can be used for riding, shows, logging, etc. This practice goes on until the elephant’s “soul is crushed”. Heartbreaking.

As explained in the video above, Lek Charliet is the founder of Elephant Nature Park (ENP). Lek started saving elephants as a young adult, and now her and her husband, Derek, run ENP together. Currently, the park cares for over 60 elephants at their Chiang Mai location alone. Lek & Derek ultimately hope for ENP to become more of a wildlife reserve, with no actual physical interaction with the elephants. Instead, tourists can come to see elephants from a distance, and learn about their natural behavior and habitat. Kind of like the San Diego Wildlife Park, I imagine (except no driving through their land). Derek explained this to us and reminded us that elephants don’t need us; though they are very social animals, they don’t rely on human interaction. By us feeding and touching them, though humane, we are disturbing their natural behavior. So in the end, this is the best result for the elephants which were rescued from the tourism and logging industries. Of course, Lek & Derek dream of the day when elephants all over the world are no longer used for tourism or any human use. That they can be left in the wild, at peace. But, until then, people can be educated on the truth, and taught more about the natural behavior and environment of elephants. Elephant Nature Park certainly does an amazing job at this.

As a volunteer with ENP, you help clean the park daily and get opportunities to feed and hang around the elephants (hello photo ops!). You can even have the chance to volunteer and care for the rescued cats and dogs which also live on the premises. Talk about animal heaven!! Every evening there is a different event such as Thai lessons, Thai dancing, or a movie. Accommodation is included for volunteers, so you stay on site in shared cabins of two to four people. All the meals which are prepared are also included, and are vegetarian or vegan, depending on the week. And let me tell you – it was DELICIOUS. Definitely some of my favorite meals in Thailand.

Vet volunteers had a slightly different schedule than the normal volunteers. We started at 7:30 each morning and would go on a medicine run with one of the vets, Dr. J. This made the morning one of the favorite parts of my days. We would all squeeze onto a scooter and ride around the park, giving each elephant their required medication and/or vitamins. We did this by making balls of sticky rice or bread, and putting the medication/vitamins inside. A messy job indeed, but so worth it! At the end of the morning, we would attend to two of the elephants – Thai Koon and Sri Prae – and clean their wounds. Both elephants injured their front left foot from stepping on landmines. This is sadly a common fate for many of the elephants used in the illegal logging industry. This is because there are still mines buried beneath the ground along the borders of Thailand, where the illegal logging often occurs. What is even sadder is that if this happens to a working elephant, the owners will just leave them to die since they don’t want to spend money on the medical care, and they see any sick or injured elephant as useless for the trade. It absolutely amazes me that after these beautiful animals have undergone such trauma, brought onto them by humans, that they would be willing to trust us again and allow us to touch them and tend to painful wounds. It was a wild experience to stand by the feet of an animal weighing six tons. How massive and strong, yet gentle and tender-hearted are elephants. We don’t deserve their forgiveness, yet they give it to us anyways.

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After tending to Thai Koon & Sri Prae, we would get to feed the “baby” elephants their vitamins. This was one of the most exciting experiences of my life – nearly getting trampled by cute baby [yet still large] elephants. Once the babies were fed, we would take a lunch break and come back in the afternoon to groom the horses (also rescued, many from the meat industry), and proceed to clean Thai Koon’s wound [again] since she would take her bandage off nearly every day. At the end of all this, we were finished around 4:30pm, and free for the evening. To say the least, volunteering with ENP was one of my favorite stays while I was in Thailand!

So if you are planning a trip to Thailand (or want to now), be sure to check out the Elephant Nature Park website to book a visit, and see all the different volunteer opportunities they offer throughout Thailand [and now Cambodia]. You can also follow them on Instagram (@elephantnaturepark) to see the latest updates (and some cute elephant videos, of course).

To learn more about the truth of the elephant trade and Elephant Nature Park’s role in saving the elephants, I highly recommend watching the movie, “Love & Bananas”. The trailer for this documentary is below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IitDac8aUJo

Thanks for reading. I hope this has taught you more about ENP, Asian elephants, and the sad truth behind the elephant trade. And I hope that you can see the importance behind ethical tourism and why we need to work together to save the elephants (and really help conserve all the animal species!!).

If you get the chance to visit ENP, or have already, let me know about your experience in the comments below 🙂