Story and Photos by Lynley Capon

MAE TAENG, Northern Thailand -- On a mountain sanctuary nearby, a tiny woman with a huge heart works to change the dire circumstances faced by elephants.

Sangduen Chailert, known as Lek, meaning small in Thai, devotes her life to saving elephants and to educating people about conservation. Her story of courage and determination deserves telling.

Many well-meaning tourists in Thailand decide to visit “elephant camps”. They tend to think that paying to see elephants play soccer, paint pictures or give rides helps the huge creatures to survive in an era when they’re no longer valued for their brawny work skills. These tourists may contribute to elephant exploitation, not conservation.

Elephants form part of Thailand’s traditional image. They were beasts of burden, even revered as gods. They carried kings, acted as “tanks” in warfare and graced works of art.

A century ago, Thailand had about 100,000 elephants. For decades, they worked in logging, which destroyed much of their natural habitat before being restricted in 1989. By then, only 25,000 elephants remained.

No longer with obvious forest work, the elephants continued to decline in numbers, health and well-being. Now only 5,000 remain: half in the wild and half domesticated.

At night, the latter often “beg” with their mahouts (trainers) on the streets of Bangkok or Chiang Mai. But for such giants, the food garnered by urban panhandling isn’t adequate. So they forage in the garbage, hardly a nutritious food source.

As a tribal-village child in the 1960s, Lek routinely encountered elephants. Her grandfather, a shaman, received one named Goldie as a gift for successful healing. Goldie started Lek on a lifelong mission.

In 1992, Lek bought her first elephant and established the Elephant Nature Park in the hill country. For 15 years, she has faced threats and challenges. Enemies of her work even took out a contract on her life and poisoned at least one favorite elephant. Instead of cowering, Lek strengthens her resolve to help her favorite animals.

Only elephants in the wild are seen as endangered. Those with human owners are equated to livestock, but they’re the ones Lek tries to save.

Many people imagine that the elephants in “camps” enjoy pleasant circumstances. Instead, these animals endure harsh training by a centuries-old process called “the crush”. Young elephants are forcibly taken from their mothers and placed in small bamboo cages where they’re beaten with sticks that have protruding nails. Punishment continues until the victims are subjugated, spirits broken, made obedient by fear, and willing to accept riders. Then they can perform for tourists. When not entertaining, they live in chains.

Blessed by a different lifestyle, Lek’s elephants roam freely in a huge area of trees and grasses, wallow in a river and find ample food. They like to graze for 18 hours a day. Breakfast includes a nutritious concoction with healing herbs. Volunteers from around the world arrive to help with the bathing and feeding. The sanctuary also offers free veterinary attention to all elephants.

Most of Lek’s 31 elephants were “domesticated” by the crush method. Only those she rescued as babies were trained more humanely. Some arrived with histories of horrific abuse. One, named Jokia, was blinded as punishment. Another, Lilly, was drugged with amphetamines so she could work longer hours. A third, Malai Tong, was maimed by a land mine.

Meadow, a logging elephant, had a back leg broken by a log. Then placed beside an aggressive bull elephant, she endured an assault that broke her back too.

BK, a bull elephant, lost a tusk to poachers with a chainsaw. Luckily for him, the culprits were interrupted, and he kept one tusk. But the amputation led to a terrible infection, and only Lek’s care saved him.

An elephant named King Mai was just a few days old when his mother roamed into a farmer’s corn field and was shot. Somehow, the baby survived for several days without food until Lek took him to her sanctuary. There, she hand-fed him.

A young elephant named Hope symbolizes the prospects for other elephants to receive better treatment. His vastly different training involves love and trust. If he obeys command words, a mahout rewards him with food. The only punishment is withholding the reward. Lek vows to prove that elephants don’t require cruel treatment.

Watching the sanctuary’s elephants range freely in a herd is a moving sight, very different from the camps. Ideally, such scenes should multiply, supported by public funds. Sadly, the Thai government does little to help, and the burden falls onto individuals like Lek.

Admittedly, a government-sponsored camp in Lampang (also in the north) trains mahouts in good elephant husbandry and teaches them to love and respect the big animals. But most domestic elephants survive only if they can earn money, so they must become entertainers.

Lek has embraced a huge task, one on a scale similar to the mighty beasts whose cause she champions. One of Thailand’s most noble citizens, she deserves all the support and acclaim she can get.

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