Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand.
The first stop on our Gap year, looking after elephants in a sanctuary. We looked after 6 elephants for 6 days a week for 3 weeks, feeding them, cleaning them and also cleaning their enclosure (picking up the uneaten food and their poo...)
Pailin, the eldest, around 60 years old used to be in a circus and got a really bad back from being mistreated which is when she was confiscated and taken to the sanctuary. There were 3 middle-aged elephants, Somboon who had a limp from being hit by a car in the streets of Bangkok when she was used in the tourist industry; Nam Phon who belonged to one of the Mahoots (one of the Thai staff who owned one of the elephants) and Kiew Ta who was blind in one eye since birth, she also belonged to a Mahoot.
This is a bit complicated... But laws in Thailand state that elephants can be owned as long as they were born domestically and not in the wild. So the sanctuary basically offer Thai people who own elephants to stay at the sanctuary, have a home, income and a place for their elephants to stay which would be safe and not cause them harm like in an elephant camp.
There were also two baby elephants, Khan Kluey, a boy of 2 and a girl of 4: Soy Thong. They were also owned by Mahoots.
There were so many other animals there too, there was a tiger called Meow who was used at a petrol station to get customers, his claws were taken out and was fed rice and sweets which caused a major limp so he was taken in to the sanctuary.
There were 3 bears used in schools as class pets!! Bears! They were confiscated from the schools.
There was a 3 legged bear who was caught in a bear trap and had to have a leg amputated. There was a bear used for tourist industry and got to twice the size of a normal size bear, he also sat on another bear and killed him!! So he had to be alone in his enclosure. There was a beach horse called Sam who was brought in due to being mistreated and was expected to live only a week but managed 5 years, he also has a tumour in his neck and has terrible hooves.
There was a one limbed monkey and a one armed and one legged makak.
There were so many abused animals, taken from homes, from the tourist industry or found in such a terrible condition.
There were also around 20 dogs... an incredibly fat one called Samsung, a big alpha dog called cookie who would attack the other dogs and if new ones were brought in he would basically eat them for breakfast.
There was also one little puppy who was found wandering past the sanctuary with her eye hanging out of its socket and a big gash in her stomach but thankfully she was saved =)
All the elephants were amazing, Kiew Ta escaped around 4 times we were there, the baby elephants escaped twice one night! The babies also ran away after their bath! They ran around the whole sanctuary because they're playful and love having fun with the Mahoots.
We went banana picking, cutting down banana trees to feed to the elephants, we cut up the trees and threw it into their enclosures to eat, we had to clean up their poo twice a day and we got to clean 2 of the elephants Nam Phon and Kiew Ta. We would get onto their backs to clean them in the lake in their enclosure. We couldn't do that for Somboon because of her limp or to Pailin because of her bad back.
The elephants changed my way of percieving animals, especially those used for the tourist industry and how likely it is that the animals are hurt... It's so sad thinking of all the other animals who are still out there and probably being mistreated and there's nothing people can do without proof which is hard to find until the damage has already been done and the animal is abandoned...
Thailand was such an experience, it is indescribable the things we have seen and the effect it has taken on me.
