ZooNooz Article - September 2006

Elephant update

It's backbreaking. Every day the work is there to be done. There is no distinction between weekday or weekend. If you're sick, or just desperate to curl up with a good book or have a snooze on the lounge, it doesn't matter. It can't be ignored or postponed. And more than 700 days have gone this way.

LISA KEEN sends an update and photos from our elephant quarantine station in Sai Yok, Thailand.

The daily elephant regime includes washdowns, training sessions, massive feeds, grass cutting, truckloads of supplies to load and unload, pool cleaning and maintaining pristine conditions in the quarantine compound.

The sheer scale of these eight elephants amplifies the immensity of the job. Washing a single elephant - dislodging a five-centimetre mudpack of red-baked clay and soil to reveal the shiny brown-grey skin beneath - can take two keepers a full 20 minutes. The elephants are washed twice daily.

Each of the elephants receives weekly pedicures to keep their toenails trim. They also seem to enjoy decorating their wiry, hairy heads and backs with an attractive combination of hay and grass while this occurs.

Elephants

These are relatively young elephants - the youngest is Melbournebound Nam Oi at six and the oldest girls Pornthip, Chaba and Pak Boon are now 14. On average they each eat 80 kg of fresh food and 25 kg of hay per day. Food is delivered from local farms in its basic state - long slender sugar canes, tall succulent banana palms, spiky pineapple plants, tightly packed hay. Fresh grass is cut by zoo staff and mahouts from surrounding hillsides and carried in enormous mounds to the centre.

Then there is, of course, the waste to be taken care of. Over 500 kg of poo is swept up, loaded into barrows and removed. The elephants drink more that 800 litres of water, so it follows that several hundred litres of urine are also cleaned daily from the pool, the mud-wallow, the shaded pavilion and the drains.

It's the Wet Season again. At the quarantine centre in Sai Yok, just 50 km short of the Burmese border, the lush landscape teems with sudden downpours, crashing storms and millions of airborne biting insects. At times the keepers must wear woollen balaclavas or netting face masks despite the more than 30°C heat. It's dirty, sweaty, gruelling work which takes many hours to complete.

Why would anyone do this? At the start of the work day before 7am, zoo keepers truck and unload breakfast supplies to the compound and check on the sleepy elephants. Each elephant has a sleep space and there is evidence of mounded dirt and warm soil bearing the imprint of their skin, but the elephants also know it is the start of their day so they are standing and expectant.

The elephant team

Greeting their keepers, some of the elephants give ultra-low purrs, reaching with their trunks for mutual "Hello" and "How are you going" touches. Younger elephants like seven-year-old Tong Dee squeak their anticipation and wag their heads and trunks, their eyes soft and dreamy.

Playtime is delightful. Mud is fantastic. Youthful and agile, the elephants create their own personal mud-slides, racing like kids to complete a circuit which will have them slipping and sliding bum-first into glorious mud where they will roll and rub.

Along with the gruelling keeper routines of caring for the elephants, and the more focussed "school" sessions, there are many affectionate pats and unplanned, lovely moments of connection when each keeper and each elephant share an unspoken communication and bond.

Keeper Lucy Mello related that each elephant greets and touches in a completely different way.

Food preparation

"Pornthip (a 14-year-old female) never used to touch us on the head or face, but these days she gently explores your face with the tip of her trunk, breathes your breath, runs her trunk across your collar-bone. If she meets new people she likes, she's very inquisitive to get to know them in this way.

"Now, Tang Mo (a 7-year-old female) is different again. If you signal to her that she can explore you, she'll ruffle through your hair and then, next thing you know, she's twisting your ear - as if she's thinking, 'Does this thing come off?'"

In June, the keepers and mahouts went through the ordeal of preparing to make the massive move to Cocos Keeling Islands, only to be halted by a small group of protesters. Since then, they've all somehow found their feet and their routines again, and are awaiting the next flight.

During this time, there has been a surge of local and international media interest in what has become an international story.

A recent group of visiting journalists asked Elephant Manager, Gary Miller - "Why do you think people love real elephants when they can see them in so many films and documentaries?"

Hot, sweaty and mud-covered from the morning's work, Gary paused for a moment, his eyes faraway. Finally he said: "You are all in a profession where a picture conveys incredible stories - where you can describe what happens and your reactions to being in a certain situations, and that's how you tell the story, how you make a difference.

"With an elephant, there is no substitute. No picture will do. Nothing comes close to seeing and smelling and feeling the incredible presence of an elephant.

"If you'd ever seen a disabled child introduced to an elephant, you see this connection, this delight and awe. And if they can lay their hand on the elephant...it's unique. It;s like a flash and then a current. It's an awakening.

"There is nothing like being in the presence of an elephant. You can't replicate that."

"Yes, we want to start a conservation breeding program for these elephants and that's important, but we also want them to be ambassadors, to touch the hearts of millions of people who will ultimately remember that for their whole lives and therefore care to do something for elephants."

The media scrum packed up shortly after and Gary and the team went back to work, but before they drove away, one of the Thai journalists came back to say "I hope you get the elephants."

By the time you're reading this, I hope that this extraordinary team of people and their much-loved charges are on their way to Australia.

Want to read more?

By joining as a Zoo Friends member we send you a full colour, glossy magazine each quarter as part of your membership package. Join now.


« Back to ZooNooz article listing