When we were staying in Chiang Mai, we spent a day at Elephant Nature Park. It's a home for rescued elephants. We picked this sanctuary instead of the many many others because we like the way it treats the elephants. It's one of the only rescue ones. Almost all the people there are volunteers. They welcome old elephants whose owners don't want them. They also rescue elephants who are being mistreated at their current homes. For example, they have elephants who were used for logging. (Chained and forced to pull heavy trees.) There are only 2-3 elephants who have been born at the sanctuary. The average age for the elephants at this park is 70! The oldest is 105 and the youngest is 3 and a half.
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Feeding the elephants through the fence
When we were done feeding the elephants whole bunches of bananas and quarters of watermelons, we took a walk with our volunteer guide around the sanctuary. We met lots of the 85 elephants there. There were also about 150 water buffalo there. They were totally oblivious to us the whole time. They just went about their business. We went with our guide to watch some elephants have a bath in the river. The youngest elephant at the sanctuary actually jumped/fell in the water. They bathed for about 1 minute and got all clean. Then, they went into the dirt and rolled around and got all dirty again!
The youngest elephant
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After watching the elephants have a bath, we headed back to the main building for lunch. There was a big buffet with salad, noodle dishes, curries, desserts, etc.
Then, we went back out into the hot afternoon! We got to meet a really cool elephant named Meadow. She has a messed up hip because she was used for logging at her old home. She is 35 years old. (Pretty young for the elephants at that sanctuary.)
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We witnessed a fight! The baby wanted to eat the adult food. The aunt was like Nah- Ah!
Aunt and nephew, duking it out
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| Fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight!!!!!!!!!!! |
Other than the elephants and buffalo, there were also over 500 dogs and cats!
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| Where the water buffalo roam... |
Over all, we had a great day and we met some amazing creatures! I definitely recommend this park just out of Chiang Mai!
;)
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| Cute calf! |
Great post Chelsea. Besides the slow motion disagreement, did the elephants seem like they were looking at everyone and were calmly watching? Cool that you helped to feed elephants. I didn't realize that people owned elephants, that's a lot of space and food and care to give!
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