Suicide in elephants

[Guest guest]

Small Is Huge

Why Jesus favors mustard seed-sized ministry.

David Neff

 

February 1, 2006

 

Her name is Sangduen Chailert. But everyone calls her " Lek. " She is

small of stature, and Lek means " small " in her native Thai language.

But Lek Chailert is a determined person, hoping to make a big impact.

Ironically, for a person named " small, " Lek works with very large

animals. Elephants, to be exact. My wife and I had the pleasure of

meeting her last fall on a vacation trip with our grandchildren in

Thailand.

 

At Lek's Elephant Nature Park, the animals don't do tricks or give

rides. Because most of them have been abused by previous owners, they

are given an opportunity to recover and to live as God made them to.

 

Lek cares for 24 elephants on her mountain property about 60

kilometers outside the ancient Thai capital of Chiang Mai. Her first

project was a baby elephant, orphaned when local farmers killed its

mother because she was eating their crops. Lek adopted baby Geng Mai,

and fed her with a very large baby bottle.

 

Each of Lek's elephants has a story. Almost all needed some kind of

rescue-from physical abuse, from starvation, from neglect, from

overwork. The abuse of domesticated Thai elephants begins with the

centuries-old training method called phajaan or " the crush. " Young

elephants are chained into a strong framework where they are poked

and cut with sharp implements until their spirits are crushed. The

treatment is so brutal that only about 50 percent of the elephants

survive. The rest die from infections or other hazards. A few

actually commit suicide by standing on their own trunks in order to

cut off their air supplies.

 

Lek Chailert wants to convince Thais that they can train elephants

with kindness. She is beginning to get some press exposure. In the

United States, National Geographic did a feature package ...

 

http://www.ctlibrary.com/ct/2006/february/41.72.html

ChristianityToday.com

--

Kim Bartlett, Publisher of ANIMAL PEOPLE Newspaper

Postal mailing address: P.O. Box 960, Clinton WA 98236 U.S.A.

CORRECT EMAIL ADDRESS IS: <ANPEOPLE

Website: http://www.animalpeoplenews.org/ with French and Spanish

language subsections.

 

 

Something to think about: We believe that the Golden Rule

applies to animals, too. We don't accept the prevailing notion

that " people come first' " or that " people are more important than

animals. " Animals feel pain and suffer just as we do, and it is

almost always humans making animals suffer and not the other way

around. Yet in spite of how cruelly people behave towards animals

-- not to mention human cruelty to other humans -- we are supposed to

believe that humans are superior to other animals. If people want

to fancy themselves as being of greater moral worth than the other

creatures on this earth, we should begin behaving better than they

do, and not worse. Let's start treating everyone as we would like

to be treated ourselves.