(TH) elephant haven

[Guest guest]

December 14, 2007- The Star

No treks please! Thai tourist park is elephant haven

 

By Gillian Murdoch

CHIANG MAI, Thailand (Reuters Life!) - Lily is an ex-drug addict, BK's

tusks were sawed off by poachers and Max was a streetwalker. The

wrinkled residents of Thailand's Elephant Nature Park make Babar and

Dumbo look like lightweights.

 

While they may sound like the cast of a soap opera, the trio are some

of the 30 stars of an elephant conservation project that draws

thousands of visitors, curious to hear their stories and see the

world's largest land mammals up close.

 

Unlike other tourist attractions involving elephants, the Nature Park

animals do not have to carry visitors their backs on jungle treks, or

entertain audiences with dancing or painting displays: they're just

expected to be themselves.

 

" In Africa people spend thousands of dollars to see an elephant

hundreds of metres away, " said Karl Cullen, the mahout or elephant

driver of Max, whose careers as trekker, logger and streetwalker came

to an abrupt end after he was hit by an 18-wheel truck while begging

just outside Bangkok in 2002.

 

" Seeing an elephant is the closest thing to seeing a dinosaur. And

there's just something very genuine about the animals, they're very

honest, " he said.

 

Left unemployed and homeless after Thailand banned logging in 1989,

hundreds of former working elephants are now tourist attractions, with

no prospect of returning to the forest.

 

REST AND RESPECT

 

At Nature Park, groups of visitors feed the elephants bananas,

sugarcane and other fruit from a viewing bungalow that looks out

towards the hills and river that form a natural boundary for the

fenceless, 100 acre park.

 

After lunch, centre volunteers guide visitors to follow the herd to

the river, where the water-loving elephants submerge themselves for a

swim and then lie on their sides in the shallows to be scrubbed with

large brushes.

 

It's a far cry from the former lives of some of the beasts, such as

Lily, who led treks by day and was fed amphetamines to give her the

stamina for illegal logging at night.

 

But that's precisely the point, explained camp founder Sangduen " Lek " Chailert.

 

" The owner has to respect the elephant. Give them time to get into

nature. A lot of the working elephants never know the jungle. They see

the jungle but they never get to go in it by themselves, " she added.

 

Hooks, which most of Asia's mahouts use to control their elephants,

are banned, and jungle treks are off, as the park's philosophy is to

give the animals as much freedom as possible.

 

Chailert, who grew up with an elephant in her family in a remote

village close to the Thai border with Myanmar, has been an outspoken

advocate of elephant welfare for over a decade.

 

She worries that tourist elephants may be overworked, a situation

which is bad for the animals, mahouts and tourists.

 

" They work from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. everyday " , she said. " Sometimes the

mahout eats on the elephant's back. They both get impatient. The

mahout is hungry, and the elephant is hungry " .

 

Penalties for elephant abuse are minimal at 500 baht ($17), she said,

when a mahout can make up to 4,000 baht a day selling rides and

sugarcane for people to give to the animals.

 

Since being named one of Time magazine's Asia heroes in 2005 for her

work to improve conditions for the animals, Chailert has gone from an

embattled outsider to role model.

 

Other camp owners and elephant organisations from Sri Lanka, India,

Nepal and Myanmar now visit the Nature Park, but Chailert still

believes there is a long way to go.

 

" I hope that one day the people will just look at them from a long

distance, take a photo. They can bathe anytime they want, they can eat

anytime they like " .