Elephant Caretaker for a Day

Today we visited an elephant farm that focuses on elephant rescue, conservation and breeding.  The theme of the program was “Elephant Caretaker for a Day.”  We got to interact and care for the elephants, including feeding, checking their health, exercising and bathing.  The elephant is a very important animal in the Thai culture.  Historically used as a draft animal and in warfare, today using the elephant for work is no longer allowed. 

The day started with a drive out to the Patara Elephant farm.  We got to see their youngest elephant, which was only 1 month and 8 days old.  It only weighed 42 kg at birth vs. 75-85 kg for an average calf and was so short, the caretakers had to build a platform so it could reach its mother to nurse.

After a brief introduction by the director of the farm, we got down to business, feeding our elephants, learning some basic Thai commands, and checking their general health.  We started with observing some elephants being fed sugar cane and grass, and  then we each met our elephant and mahout. The interaction started with feeding the elephants a basket of sugar cane and bananas with a lump of tamarind, followed by a big bundle of grass.  The sounds when they crunch through the sugar cane is incredible!  The feeding technique is to hold up the food so the elephant can see it and saying “bone” (open) to get them to open their mouths and then you place the food in their mouth.  The elephants are quite happy to take the food right out of your hand or right out of the basket if you are slow.  Several of us had female elephants with younger calves and the calves stole the tamarind out of the basket almost immediately.  

 

Our next task was to conduct a health check on our elephant.  This was not a generally popular activity, as part of the check involved breaking apart some of our elephant’s dung and squeezing it vigorous to ensure there was enough moisture.  Not to mention smelling it and checking that the plant material was thoroughly digested.

Before mounting and riding, we cleaned the elephants off with big whisk-like brushes made from grass and washed them off with a hose.  The elephants seemed to enjoy the bath, but enjoyed eating the grass brushes more.   Once the elephants were clean and watered it was time to mount up.  We had traditional costumes to wear, and we went on a hour long ride to exercise the elephants.  This was fun, but not without occasional anxiety between the rough trail, our elephants bumping into each other, keeping our balance, the younger elephants crashing all over the place, and worrying our mahout guides were going to get trampled.

At the end of the trail, it was time to stop for a picnic feast, followed by skin care for our elephants, bathing them again in a pool a brushing them down.  Cleaning and brushing an elephant is a big job and takes quite awhile.    

There was an absolutely ungodly amount of food for lunch.  This is less than half of what there was for 8 people.    Fried chicken, pork satay, rambutan, mangosteen, oranges, bananas, fried bananas, multiple kinds of sticky rice, multiple sweets.  

Finally it was time for a brief ride back to the main road where we said goodbye to our elephant and mahout before the mahouts rode the elephants back to the farm.  My elephant reached out toward me with his trunk as my mahout rode him away.  There was a tear in his eye as he turned away.

Sarah with elephant and mahout

-Mark