One individual's quest for elephant protection

[Guest guest]

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan/2007/11/28_elephants.shtml

A passion for pachyderms

The Tang Center's Julie Barnett is on a crusade to save Asian elephants

 

By Wendy Edelstein, Public Affairs | 28 November 2007

 

Among her colleagues at the Tang Center, primary-care nurse Julie Barnett is

known as " elephant girl. " Barnett earned her nickname because she's

committed to aiding Asian elephants, a cause she came to several years ago

after visiting a sanctuary for the abused mammals in northern Thailand.

 

 

That " cool day trip " opened her eyes to the plight of Asian elephants, whose

numbers have dwindled to 40,000 worldwide (from an estimated population of

100,000 at the beginning of the 20th century). Loss of habitat, old age, few

births, and many deaths have contributed to these losses among wild

elephants, while their domestic counterparts suffer from poor nutrition and

lack of veterinary care.

 

A key attraction in Thailand's tourist industry, Asian elephants are used to

carry passengers in heavy riding chairs often on full-day or multi-day

treks. While elephants are strong, their strength isn't centered in their

back and joints. " They walk 10 to 12 hours a day, " Barnett points out, " and

some of them are carrying 1,000 pounds of people on their back in one of

those baskets. So their health is terrible. "

 

In Bangkok, elephants are made to stand in polluted streets with large sacks

of bananas and sugar cane on their backs. Their handlers sell tourists and

locals the opportunity to feed the animal what amounts to junk food for

pachyderms for the equivalent of a few pennies.

 

Elephants are also the favorite workhorses of illegal timber harvesters in

Thailand. Logging has been banned in Thailand since the 1980s, but teak

loggers continue to operate. To avoid detection they force elephants to pull

logs to pick-up points during the night. " A lot of the elephants are being

fed bananas with amphetamines, so they're like meth addicts. They are often

underfed and overworked, and become very thin and prone to injury, " says

Barnett.

 

Swimming with elephants

 

Since 2005, Barnett has journeyed to northern Thailand twice a year to

volunteer with elephants rescued from such situations. Not surprisingly, the

care and feeding of elephants is an involved undertaking.

 

At 7 a.m., volunteers hike to nearby fields and cut grass for their charges,

who consume 500 pounds of food a day.

 

At Boon Lott's Elephant Sanctuary (www.blesele.com), Barnett's favorite

shelter, volunteers ride the elephants to a nearby river, then bathe them

twice a day. " It's a little scary, but it's also exhilarating, " says Barnett

of swimming with elephants. The volunteers scrub the elephants to rid their

skin of parasites. The water helps keep the creatures cool in Thailand's

humid climate.

 

Adventures are far from foreign to Barnett, who has traveled to many remote

locations around the world. (Earlier this year, for example, she lived with

a headhunter tribe in Borneo.) Nonetheless, her passion for the large

mammals has taken her by surprise: Their " power and majesty " impress

Barnett, and their gentleness deeply moves her. " When you're riding on them,

you have nothing to hold on to. There's no saddle or reins ... you just sit

right at their neck. " Barnett marvels that the elephants — who weigh 10,000

pounds on average and stand the height of a one-story building — could

easily throw her off and trample her, but they don't.

 

Barnett can recount tales of individual Asian elephants as if they were her

own children. In 2006 she helped rescue Medo, a 30-year-old animal abused by

loggers who persisted in using her for hauling even though a logging

accident had maimed her two decades ago. Elephant-welfare agencies raise

money to purchase such abused animals from their keepers.

 

" When the *mahout* [caretaker] brought Medo out of the forest, she had fresh

blood on her head and had clearly been beaten, " says Barnett. Medo's

rescuers cajoled her into their truck, and then ferried her eight hours to

the sanctuary over mountainous terrain. " Medo hadn't seen another elephant

in about 10 years, " says Barnett, explaining that elephants are pack animals

who typically live together.

 

Once the animal arrived safely at its new home, Barnett got the opportunity

to use her day job's skills. The sanctuary's volunteer veterinarian had

learned she was a nurse. " We had to open up wounds and drain out the pus. It

was like working on a person, except that Medo is huge. "

 

Most of the half-dozen sanctuaries where Barnett has volunteered abut

farmland. When the elephants are led to the jungle at night to sleep, they

are secured to trees with long lengths of chain, because commodities such as

rice, bananas, and papayas are planted nearby. " If they are not restrained,

they can eat — and destroy — an entire season of crops in a night, " she

explains.

 

One of the elephants Barnett cared for this summer broke loose overnight,

and began feeding at a nearby farm. A farmer discovered him, shot him in the

head, and left him for dead.

 

When Barnett learned of his situation, the elephant was barely alive. " He

had just been rescued four months before that from a life of terrible

abuse, " she says. " The Asian elephants are in so much trouble. It's very

possible they could become extinct. It's my little crusade to help save

them. "