Hello, I’m Farmer Adam and recently I have been on an adventure!
As part of my Level 3 Animal Course, I got the opportunity to work with Elephants in Thailand!
This was such an exciting chance to go and work with new animals, even if it did dawn on me halfway through the 11-hour flight that I’m flying all this way to do what I do at work…. pick up animal poo!
The place we went to is called the Elephant Nature Park… it was simply spectacular. The scenery was stunning and I loved waking up each morning to the Elephants and Water Buffalo amidst the sea of greenery.
So the first day arrives and we are all ready for the work to begin. There we all were, ready to see the elephants up close and personal, when we were hit with the bombshell that they’ve had 6 tonnes of watermelon delivered for the elephants! Anyone with a working pulse needed to help unload it. This was a mammoth task which took two and a half hours to complete! I tried to keep the morale up by suggesting we listen to ‘Watermelon Sugar’ by Harry Styles. This was great until the next suggestion was the worst remix of ‘Sweet Caroline’ I had ever heard. Morale plummeted at this point, as my ears bled.
In the evenings we were fortunate enough to be given lessons on Thai culture and language, as well as more information about the park and the background of the Elephants. They do a really amazing job of saving over-worked elephants from an otherwise cruel life in industries; such as trekking (for up to 18 hours a day), illegal ivory trading, and making them perform in the circus. Elephants can live up to 70 years, so being subjected to these things for that long is really rough for them. That’s why it was so inspiring and heartwarming to hear about the work Lek (the founder) and her team does. Lek is so passionate about elephants, that when she was given the ultimatum: her family or the elephants, she chose the elephants!
Lek showed us a film where they traveled a full day through treacherous conditions to rescue one of their elephants. This was a geriatric elephant at the end of a tough life trekking, and they wanted to give her a nice end. It was beautiful and the passion just radiated from Lek as she spoke about them. It really encouraged me to help their cause of giving elephants the life they deserve.
The one elephant who stole my heart was Kabu, another geriatric elephant which they rescued. She couldn’t walk properly because of an accident whilst logging. The injury never fully healed, but she was still made to work until the day she was rescued. The story has a happy ending however, as when she arrived at the nature park she met Chana – another elephant with similar injuries, and they are now best friends who love spending time together.
Other activities we did included: going on the skywalk where we got to see the elephants from a different view-point, walking rescued dogs around the park, preparing the elephants meals and cleaning out their enclosures. Once the elephants went in for the night, we would either play football or volleyball with the locals, which was great, even if I was on the end of a few death stares when I missed the ball. At night I occasionally went off to look for exotic animals. Some of the cool animals I found include: Tokay Geckos (everywhere!), a Sculopendra (google it if you dare), Jumping Spiders and an Iguana!
Overall I had the most incredible experience and I would recommend it to everyone! Try go and visit or maybe even volunteer there at some point in your life, you won’t regret it!
Farmer Adam.
