Posted by: sheryl in elephant nature park on
Dec 24, 2011
12-24-11
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Elephant Nature Park, Thailand
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I knew that an elephant’s skin would feel rough to the touch, but never expected that it would have course hair of varying lengths, thick and almost spiky. We caressed the elephants today at Lek Chailert’s Elephant Nature Park. We spent the whole day with them, feeding them bananas, pumpkins and watermelon. We went down to the river with them and threw buckets full of water all over them, bathing them, as some leaned in and rolled around in the cool wetness. We watched baby elephants playing, mud wrestling, smearing the mud all over themselves and each other. We learned a lot about Thai elephants, of which there are only about 5,000 left. 
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Not so long ago, there were 100,000 elephants, living in the jungle forests, and people began putting them to work. They worked to clear the trees, to haul them, to build, and to destroy their own natural habitat. They worked because mahouts, or elephant trainers, broke them in and forced them to be submissive. Elephants are incredibly strong, and were worked to death dragging huge teak trees up hills. Then logging was outlawed, and the elephants were out of work, but couldn’t survive on their own back in the wild. Especially since much of their habitat had been destroyed. They live as long as we do, so elephants in their seventies and eighties need a place to retire.
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Lek has rescued thirty six elephants that have been mistreated, injured, or abandoned. She has a large piece of land outside Chiang Mai, and tourists visit with the elephants daily, which pays to keep them fed and happy. Its pretty incredible the way she is working to change the tribal long standing tradition of torturing a little elephant on its first day away from its mother until it does what its told. Lek gives these animals so much love, and creates an environment where they are looking out for each other and behaving as a herd would, living together in the wild. But, they are so gentle that my children were putting food right into their mouths all day long.
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