Happy New Year and welcome to 2009!

The years have flown by since Elephant Nature Park moved to the present location, and the elephant herd has grown as well. For those of us who have been around for a long time, including those of you that have been making return trips over and over again throughout the years, it has been a treat watching Hope and Jungle Boy and Tong Jan grow up. Hope and Jungle Boy are in the process of accelerated growth spurts it seems! They have become "big little elephants" and both of them are now just about the same size of their respective number one aunties, Mae Perm and Mae Keow.

There have been tears of joy and tears of sadness as new eles are rescued (some from horrific circumstances like Medo, Faa Sai or Mae Bua Loy), and then on the other side of it hearts get broken when leased elephants that stayed with us for years (like Mae Toh Koh and Pupia), inevitably go back to their owners and a life of exploitation. Sadly, we can't save them all, at least not yet… but Elephant Nature Park continues to do its best to try to make the lives of the Thai elephant (and dogs, cats, cows and water buffalo!) better, one elephant at a time. An important factor to saving elephants is inspiring humans to care enough about the world's dwindling elephant population to want to try to do something about it. Just getting to share some time with some of our amazing elephants here in the Park and hearing some of their stories is enough to do this. Getting to know an elephant can change your life!

The project wouldn't exist without all of you wonderful animal-loving people out there, who have continued to support the Park through the years, with donations, fundraising, repeat visits, your hard work volunteering, by adopting an animal from the Park, creating awareness back in your home countries, spreading the word about Elephant Nature Park and talking people out of the more traditional exploitative elephant tourist traps. We appreciate all of your love and moral support and all of the wonderful things you have done to help the Park grow into a wonderful place for elephants to exist peacefully. May Ganesha keep removing all obstacles in our path, so we can continue to make the world a better place for elephants for many generations to come.

Real Hope For The Future Elephants In Thailand

As most of you know, one of our most popular eles in the Park is named Hope. He was given this name for a reason, as in "hope" for a better future for eles in Thailand – regarding the ways in which they are trained and how they would be used in tourism. Lek "hoped" she could set an example with Hope that with positive reinforcement training, the cruel methods of the phajaan aren't necessary. Also, she "hoped" to prove that tourists were more than happy to come see elephants like Hope, in a more natural setting just doing their elephant thing, and that tourists didn't need to ride an elephant or see them doing unnatural circus style tricks to be entertained.

Finally, all of these wonderful ideas are starting to pay off. Elephant Nature Park has gained international popularity through the years and documentaries have been made about Elephant Nature Park in many countries, but Lek has been trying to get others in her own country to pay more attention to her unique idea of elephant tourism, for the benefit of all elephants in Thailand. It is looking like 2009 just might the Thai elephant's lucky year! On January 14th approximately 120 people paid a visit to Elephant Nature Park, including the governor of the Surin province and many politicians as well as the chief district mayor of the city of Surin, the elephant management team of Surin along with 20 mahouts, the governor of Chiang Mai and an assortment of TV stations and press.

During her recent visit to the Surin Elephant Round-Up in November, Lek had once again invited the organizers of the event and members of the local government to come to visit Elephant Nature Park and this year they took her up on the offer. The purpose of the visit would be for them to observe our project, from the treatment, management and training of the elephants, to the tourism side of it, what the visitors experienced while visiting Elephant Nature Park. The day was an overwhelming success, and all who were present were amazed to see the elephants were managed in a free roaming atmosphere by mahouts who didn't carry hooks! They were treated to an "elephant show" Elephant Nature Park style, with an example of our positive reinforcement training in action and all of our youngsters were on best behavior! Hope, Jungle Boy, Aura and Faa Sai performed all of their commands with no trouble for the VIP audience.

The officials who were present were so impressed with Lek and Elephant Nature Park overall, they made immediate plans to make major changes in Surin, to get all of the streetbegging elephants off of the streets by creating a place for them to stay similar to Elephant Nature Park (with Lek as advisor), where the elephants will earn their living by just being an elephant! Yet another exciting development is that they would like Lek to be an integral part in the organizing of next year's Surin Elephant Round-Up, and with Lek's help want to restructure the event to be less exploitative.

We want to give a big thanks to all who have visited the Park or went online and signed the petition to stop street begging elephants. The power of so many signatures gave more strength to the plea to end street begging once and for all, so this is just the beginning.

In the meantime, as a goodwill gesture to the mahouts in Surin who are on the streets (there is a high elephant population in Surin province and not a lot of tourism besides during the Elephant Round-Up, so there are many out-of-work elephants, which of course result in many eles on the streets), 300 "mahout care kits" were sent to Surin as a gift from Elephant Nature Park. The kit included flashlight, shirt, first aid kit, toiletry kit, mosquito net and blanket all inside an Elephant Nature Park duffel bag. It is a small gesture, but hopefully will make their lives a little bit easier until changes for the better can be made, and now it is sounding like this could be sooner than originally thought!

After Many Park Females Try Their Luck, An Unlikely Pair End Up As Aunties For Tong Kham

In our last newsletter, we mentioned all of the different ladies who were vying for the coveted position of auntie to Tong Kham (who is the son of Mae Boon Chu). Since the last edition, both Mae Dta Keow and Dok Ngern have lost interest and have returned to Aura and Mae Boon. Sometimes Dok Ngern spends time with the Tong Tae family as well, as both she and Aura are very fond of Tong Daeng. Malai Tong is also now a full time auntie to Tong Tae and is happy to be included in that family group. After the aforementioned females lost interest, temporary visitor to the Park Mae Kham Dtaa became fixated on Tong Kham and spent most afternoons with him and his mother. As a result of this, shy and tentative Mae Geao (who had also been vying for auntie time, and was a favorite of Tong Kham) backed off a bit, as she is not comfortable in the company of most other elephants. Mae Kham Dtaa's stay was short-lived though, soon she was back to work at a trekking camp down the road, and Mae Geao had the mother and baby all to herself.

Interestingly, during the time that Mae Kham Dtaa was with Tong Kham and Mae Boon Chu, Mae Geao and Jarunee (who is also shy and cautious in her friend-making) started spending time together intermittently and it became obvious that a friendship was growing between the two gals. After Mae Kham Dtaa left the Park and Mae Geao returned to a more regular position as auntie for Tong Kham, Jarunee wanted to be with Mae Geao but wasn't yet sure how she felt about Mae Boon Chu and Tong Kham. She spent a few days observing from the sidelines and then one day it seemed that a mutual decision had been made and she joined the little family group. This is quite a wonderful opportunity for both Mae Geao and Jarunee, because if there were more dominant females who were interested in being aunties to this baby, these two girls wouldn't have the confidence to assert themselves and keep their positions. Instead, they would probably just bow out gracefully and allow someone else to take their place.

Both Jarunee and Mae Geao have spent the majority of their time here as solitary females and it is wonderful to see them get to be part of a family group and to enjoy the pleasure of having a little baby in their lives. It is interesting to notice now that Jarunee has joined them and feels quite comfortable, how quickly she has become attached to both mother and baby. Sadly, there is a chance that Mae Boon Chu and Tong Kham could be leaving sooner than what was originally planned, which would be heartbreaking for the two new aunties. We hope that this is not to be, but if it is the case, at least the two new friends still have each other. In the meantime the foursome are enjoying their time together, and little Tong Kham is feeling brave and confident while exploring under the watchful eyes of his mother and two aunties.

Max In Musth

On November 16th Max began his annual musth period. He had been exhibiting pre-musth behavior for the previous month, so it came as no surprise when the temporin started flowing in mid-November. Max comes into musth at approximately the same time every year and is in musth for about two and a half months. This year, Max is spending his period of musth in a different area than his usual space. The reason for this is that lately Max had started to spend part of his evenings and mornings at his sleeping space wrapping his trunk around one of the support poles of his shelter and pushing his head against it, not in an aggressive manner, but gently rocking the structure. Once his musth started and he was confined to his shelter all of the time, the constant pushing against the post eventually weakened it and finally the night arrived when his shelter came crashing down.

This created only a minor inconvenience for Max, and in his testosterone charged state, he seemed a bit satisfied with the destruction that he had caused. This event was a bit frustrating for his caretakers though, as his roof had been recently replaced and a new water system for Max to drink and bathe at leisure had been put in at his shelter as well.

Max was able to be moved without any incident to a new area, which is actually quite nice for him. He has a nice tree under which he can enjoy the shade, and the ground has an equal balance of high and low spots, so Max can lay down at night comfortably with a natural 'pillow' so it is easier for him to get up in the mornings. He has a constant stream of female admirers visiting him from morning to night, and occasionally there is even a queue of ladies waiting for their moment with the grand old man while the females with him are reluctant to leave! His present favorite female seems to be Mae Elu, of Tong Jan's family, and both Mae Keow and Lilly have been seen spending a lot of time with him. Of course he always favors Somboon, but she seems a bit put out by his preference to Mae Elu at this time.

Due to Max's advanced age and arthritic front legs, he isn't nearly as aggressive when in musth as our younger males Boon Khum and Khum Minh, and is quite manageable despite his elevated level of testosterone. Because his new mahout Son Yee does not act aggressively towards him, Max doesn't see him as someone who could be a threat, and is relatively docile when the time comes to feed him or change his water.

His last weeks of musth should pass uneventfully and soon he will be once again roaming freely amongst his female friends.

Mae Bua Loy Arrives at Elephant Nature Park

Towards the end of November every year, the Surin Elephant Round-Up takes place in the Surin province of Thailand. This is a national elephant festival celebrating the importance of the elephant in Thai culture and history. Every year Lek goes to this festival with a group of volunteers and the occasional film crew, to observe the treatment and well-being of the elephants present at this event. Many elephants are bought and sold at the Round-Up and it has been quite a few years since Lek has been able to come home without buying an elephant in distress.

This year was no different, and when Lek and company met Mae Bua Loy, they knew they couldn't leave Surin without her. One of the people accompanying Lek this year was longtime Park supporter and passionate elephant lover Singer Rankin, founder of the non-profit World Women Work. Through donations and fundraising World Women Work was able to provide the funds to buy Mae Bua Loy.

Mae Bua Loy is approximately 30 years old and originally came from Mae Sariang where she worked as an illegal logging elephant, which is how her back right leg was severely broken. After she healed from this injury she spent some time as a street begging elephant. Many people complained about seeing an elephant walking the streets with such an injury, so the owner took her home. She became pregnant in 2005 and gave birth sometime in 2007. Sadly her baby was taken away from her and sold in mid-2008. After this, the owner's plan was to try to set up a "breeding program" and within a four-month period she was mated with a male elephant 28 times! Her baby had been taken away from her only months before and the last thing on her mind was accepting advances from a male. Even while she still had her baby and was still nursing the owner was trying to mate her. Of course, because of her heartbreak and distress over having her baby taken away from her, she didn't get pregnant and the owner decided to sell her.

This turned out to be a stroke of good luck for Mae Bua Loy, as she ended up here at Elephant Nature Park. Upon arriving, when she first set eyes upon Tong Tae, she knew at once that she had to become one of his aunties. This would be the best cure for the heartache caused by losing her own baby. Of all of the elephants ever to arrive at Elephant Nature Park Mae Bua Loy was the quickest to be accepted and settle in to a family group. It seemed that the existing females in the group understood how she felt and were quick to make her feel welcome, and she immediately moved into the "number one auntie" position. She is unbelievably overprotective of little Tong Tae and is with him every moment. His mother, Mae Tong Dee can relax a bit more now with yet one more auntie and is often the furthest away from her little one, grazing peacefully, knowing that there are more than enough caring females to look after her baby. Mae Bua Loy has settled right in and it is almost as if she has been here for many years already.

Aura's Family Group Is Reunited

As mentioned in the above article, Dok Ngern and Mae Dta Keow have returned their attentions to Mae Boon and Aura, and the four are enjoying weekly trips up to Elephant Haven once again. But with Mae Boon and Aura both being "social butterflies" who enjoy the company of various elephants, the family group is still occasionally fragmented, with Aura off in one direction, Mae Boon somewhere else, Mae Dta Keow waiting patiently for Mae Boon to quit socializing with others and Dok Ngern following along anywhere. Lately Mae Boon has been choosing to spend a lot of time with the Tong Tae family, which works out well since Aura, Dok Ngern and even Mae Dta Keow feel comfortable with this family group. Mae Dta Keow is the least interactive of the four: she is ok with most of the family members, but doesn't really know Mae Tong Dee or newcomer Mae Bua Loy well enough to really join in. Aura on the other hand has became great friends with Tong Daeng, and she spends lots of time with him and the two youngsters really enjoy pushing, shoving and rolling around together.

One more great thing that has come out of these trips to elephant haven is that Mae Dta Keow and Dok Ngern are getting much closer and are now often seen together even when Mae Boon and Aura are not with them. This is important, since sadly we must remember that Mae Boon and Aura aren't Permanent residents at the Park, even though they have been here for three years. When and if the day does arrive when they have to leave, hopefully Mae Dta Keow and Dok Ngern will continue their relationship and maybe one day in the future, Mae Dta Keow can be auntie to a baby of Dok Ngern's.

Copyright © 2009 Elephant Nature Foundation. All rights reserved.