The Elephant Nature Park is an elephant sanctuary started in the 90s by a woman named Lek who is very passionate about saving this endangered species. Her goal is to give the elephants as close to a "normal" life as possible, never being exposed to abuse or torture that so many elephants endure. The long and the short of it goes something like this: Asian elephants were used by the thousands in the logging industry in Thailand, but when logging was outlawed in '89 these elephants were out of work, and many were left to fend for themselves. Unfortunately the logging has left their natural habitat quite depleted and many elephants died. Others were then used as "working elephants" mostly giving rides to tourists or begging for money in Bangkok. These elephants are, for the most part, very neglected and abused by there owners. The working elephants are sometimes given amphetamines so they can work excessive hours, and end up addicted to the drugs. The ones used to get tourists' money in bangkok often suffer stress, malnourishment, and getting hit by cars. This life seems like hell for elephants, but we were shown a documenary and learned that their lives start out even worse. In order to get the elephants to become submissive, their owners torture them for days, keeping them tied up in cages that are too small, beating them with sticks that have nails on the end, starving them even, all of this until their spirit breaks and they become the submissive animal their owners desire (we had to watch footage of this, heartbreaking). The worst part is, even though the Asian elephant is technically an endangered species, domestic elephants are considered "livestock" and thus not protected from abuse or neglect under any law. It is really horrifying.
The elephants at ENP are all rescued in some way or another. They have recovering drug addicts, abandoned babies who's mothers had been killed, a few with dislocated hips from car accidents, even one who was blinded by repeated torture from her owner. The park has 30 some elephants. To keep the park running they rely heavily on volunteers and money from tourists like us. We did a program where we came in the morning, learned how to feed the elephants, and then went with them to the river to get baths. The next morning we took a walk around the park with a guide, watched a few of the elephants and learned their stories. Most of their backgrounds are so sad, it's really unbelievable. To see them hanging with their buddies, playing and loving on each other, it made me so happy for them and their lives now. Our guide recognized that the situation is not ideal, these elephants lare still not in their natural habitat leading a "wild" life, but it's the best that everyone here can give them for now. Their goal is to be able to get enough land where elephants are able to roam free without handlers and live as natural life as possible.
I think we were both expecting the experience to be a bit more personal, as in more time one on one with the elephants and not so many people about. After we were shown the documenary and learned more about what the park was about, I'm just happy that there are people like Lek who are willing to devote their lives to saving these animals.
The best thing tourists can do is spread the word not to support the "working elephant" industry; such as beggars in Bangkok using elephants to get $$ and people offering elephant rides (feeling rather guilty about that elephant ride in Nepal-we learned here that their backs are actually not able to support such weight and they end up with many problems from this). This was an eye opening experience and I'm very glad we came. I now know so much more about the species and the dangers they face. They really are caring, intelligent, beautiful animals and definitely deserve the best life possible.
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