|  | | | sabai designs | | | Maintained by: | | sabai designs offers an exotic range of home décor from Thailand, Laos, Burma, Vietnam & India. Our collection focuses on quality hand made items including silk tapestries, runners, throws, art, stone carvings, Buddhist sculpture, antiques, Indian wall hangings, cushion covers, scarves & jewellery. | |
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Elephant Nature Park
Elephant Nature Park
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Elephant Nature Park is sanctuary for injured and mistreated elephants, situated in the Mae Taeng valley, near Chiang Mai in northern Thailand. The founder of the park, Sangduen Chailert, better known as Lek, has been passionately championing the rights of the Asian elephant for decades. Lek has created a haven where the elephants that she has rescued can live out their days with dignity, roaming the park freely. Elephant Nature Park is funded by donations, day trips to the park and the volunteer program where visitors stay in bamboo bungalows for a week or more. Visitors can observe the elephants interacting in a relatively natural environment, feed them and bathe them in the river. There are currently over 30 elephants living at the park together with many dogs, cats, water buffalo, cows, wild pigs and a pony that have also found sanctuary at the park. The youngest elephant is only a month old while the oldest elephant at the park is over 80 years old. Lek also operates an emergency medical unit called Jumbo Express that helps to treat sick elephants throughout the north of Thailand. |
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In 2005 Lek was named a ‘Hero of Asia’ by Time magazine, for the work she has done fighting to protect and win respect for the Thai elephant. Lek was also recognized by the American Humane Society with the Genesis Award in 2003 after the airing of the National Geographic documentary Vanishing Giants, highlighting Lek's work with the Asian elephant. In 2001 Lek was named ‘Hero of the Planet’ by the Ford Foundation in association with National Geographic. Lek’s work has received international acclaim, including documentaries by National Geographic, Discovery, Animal Planet, and the BBC and articles written in newspapers and magazines around the world. |
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The elephants that live at Lek's park are undoubtedly among the luckiest elephants in Thailand. Unfortunately, elephants that have been born in captivity and have never known life in the wild are unlikely to survive if released into the jungle. Only about 500 elephants are thought to live in the wild in the forests of Thailand. At Elephant Nature Park, there is no elephant riding and the elephants do not have to work or perform demeaning tricks. They are free to wander the park and form natural bonds with each other. Many of the elephants have suffered terrible injuries from accidents and mistreatment during their working lives. Malai Tong had part of her foot blown off by a landmine on the Burmese border and Medo has a broken back as a result of being forced to mate with an agressive bull elephant while she was chained. Jokia was blinded by her previous mahouts when she lost her baby and refused to work. She is now inseparable best friends with Mae Perm. Mae Perm leads Jokia around the park protectively, their trunks in almost constant contact and all sorts of mysterious noises passing between them. The elephants at the park have left behind their misery and torment and now enjoy a very different life among their own kind and people who love and care for them. Baths in the river are a favourite time amongst all the elephants and while the older elephants stand or lie in the water as immovable as big grey boulders, Hope and Jungle Boy, two juvenile male elephants, wrestle playfully in the water, pinning each other down, the tips of their trunks popping up from the surface of the river to breathe. The elephants are happy at Elephant Nature Park and enjoy the love and respect they deserve.
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You can learn more about the Elephant Nature Park by visiting their website at
www.elephantnaturefoundation.org
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