Shocking tinsel and free-roaming eles.

By John Roberts 22 September 2008 03:25:00

It is no secret, particularly to my mahouts, that I would love to see the eles here at Anantara and Four Seasons have greater freedom - particularly the babies.  Some of the mahouts and owners agree with me and let their eles have pretty much the run of any area I can provide (my lack of ability to provide a large area is a recurring frustration) while some are still worried to let their babies roam or be left too far from camp at night.

    I have long known of the Royal Sponsored elephant re-introduction programme on several sites around Thailand, so when, on a recent trip to Lampang, I got the chance to visit their local site I grabbed the opportunity.

    I have to admit I had fairly low expectations, knowing the Lampang area pretty well - I thought - lots of denuded National Park style forest but criss-crossed by roads and villages.

    We drove down through a Government teak plantation, thirty-year wood in the process of being thinned out, and into an open grassland area and were presented with a vista - and what a vista, the range of hills that make up the border between Lampang and Phrae provinces spreading out before us in an almost 180 degree panorama.

    "Sorry we can't show you any elephants, but they're all out there somewhere" - fine by me.

    Unbeknown to anyone, it seems, and unadvertised, about ten years ago they let nine elephants go out there, now almost completely wild they are loosely tracked by a couple of mahouts who just keep an eye on them and steer them away from trouble.

    We drove back into the teak and for miles through rice paddies, along irrigation dykes and through private rubber plantations - they explained to us that the water was put in by the project, along with a reservoir, to pacify local folks for the loss of 'their' forest to the elephants - a great idea except that now, ten years on, businesses are drawn to the area specifically for the 'free' water and now the reservoirs, originally for the elephants, are beginning to run dry.

    After an hour of driving we came to the second site, in a forest contiguous with the first, and to something more applicable to our project, where, despite our best efforts, we are never likely to have 1,000,000 acres of Government forest at our disposal - at the second site we were shown the holding pens where the elephants get their first taste of going back into the wild, excitingly for us, the area is strung with some home improvised electric fence, solar driven and, somewhat festively, hung with silver tinsel.

    Even more exciting, it is reasonably cheap to construct and seems to work for (or against) domestic elephants.

    They let the new eles go in small paddocks of forest about 1km square, the mahouts stay close by at night, finding them every day at least once, just to check, and the rest of the time they get to roam 'as wild'.

    So, lacking shame, we took a lot of photos - we'll begin our trial run as soon as the new baby elephant camp is finished and, fingers crossed on the new land where ever that may be, look to roll out the idea in a whole new project.

 

    A dry reservoir in the wet season...



...Wildlife Conservation student Karen Kelly studies the board of released elephants...



...the shameless stealing of ideas and the wonders of cameras in mobile phones...



...the mahouts offer treats through the tinsel...



...Dr Cherry, our vet and Dr Pap, last year's vet inspect one of the yet-to-be-dehabilitated elephants and find an eye infection to be clearing.

    We even made it onto their blog...
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Thursday, September 11, 2008

 

 Visitors visit a group of elephants which is rehabilitating in the electric fence project2. กลุ่มพังซาร่า พังพรรษา พังเพชรา สีดอภาธร และพลายบริบูรณ์ ที่ปรับพฤติกรรมอยู่ในรั้วไฟฟ้าโครงการ 2

 

 

Mr.Roberts is studying our self-sufficiency electric fence style. คุณ John กำลังศึกษาวิธีการเชื่อมต่อกระแสไฟฟ้าในการทำรั้วไฟฟ้าแบบพอเพียง

 Mr. John Roberts, a group of The Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation and Khun Prasob Thipprasert, a Special Pachyderm Advisor of our foundation visit The Elephant Reintroduction Foundation at Lampang Camp. คุณ John Roberts และคณะจาก The Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation พร้อมด้วย คุณประสพ ทิพย์ประเสริฐ ได้เข้าเยี่ยมโครงการคืนช้างสู่ธรรมชาติ จังหวัดลำปาง โดยได้เยี่ยมชมแคมป์ 1 บริเวณ โรงพยาบาลช้าง พลับพลาพระราชพิธีปล่อยช้าง ลานพิธีบริจาคช้าง และสุสานช้าง จากนั้นก็เดินทางสู่แคมป์ 2 เพื่อเข้าเยี่ยมชมโครงการรั้วไฟฟ้าแบบพอเพียง ทั้งโครงการ 1 และโครงการ 2 และช้างที่ทางมูลนิธิฯ กำลังปรับพฤติกรรมอยู่ภายในบริเวณรั้วไฟฟ้า

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