Elephant Tails - Anantara Resorts & Spas - Thailand

Been there, done that, got the mahout shirt?

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 03:39:00 GMT

    Well, think again, gone are the days of sackcloth and ashes for our graduates; nowadays, should you pass your mahout test, you will receive a fancy decorated mohom from ladies of the Izara Arts project and Khom Loy Foundation.

    Izara Arts had the great idea to try to help the ladies from the various ethnic minorities dotted through the mountains of the Golden Triangle by bringing in professional designers to use their traditional weaving patterns in designs.

    Subtle touches of ethnicity rather than pure ethnic - let's face it you'd look a little odd going down to the hardware store in full Akha dress or carving up the lasagna as a Hmong matriarch but in buying an Izara garment you're doing just as much, if not more, good than we're you to pick up the plastic cowrie shell bedecked bodice that will sit in your closet 'til the moths get it or it goes to the jumble sale.

    The main genius of Izara is that they've combined the different traditional patterns from each ethnic group and combined them in the same garment so turning out unique garments that are not only wearable but are an amalgam of all the patchwork of peoples that inhabit our hills.

    We liked the idea so much we had them do their stuff to our graduation mohoms and so, from now on, not only yourselves but also our local ladies will benefit, providing you pass your test that is - so pay attention in class it's not just you and an ele-dung certificate anymore!

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Saving Elephants from Abuse on the Streets

Topic: Ways to Make a Difference | Rating: 0

Posted by: Izara Arts Development Project Feb 18, 2008 | 1:25:10 AM

Izara Arts has joined forces with the Anantara Elephant Camp.

Izara Arts is now making the outfits
traditionally worn by "mahouts," or trainers at the Anantara. These
distinctive uniforms are given to guests who take part in the training
courses offered at the elephant camp. They are not only giving work
to the women who sew the Akha and Hmong patterns, but also raising money
to help protect one of Thailand's most noble creatures.

The program aims to rescue elephants
from illegal and abusive work in the streets, while educating the mahouts
who ride them. They teach willing trainers to care for their
elephants, and how to treat the animals with the respect they deserve --
you can find more information at the Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation.

Spying from space, groping on the ground....

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 03:49:00 GMT

As regular visitors to these 'ere pages will be bored of being reminded, the price of local bamboo scrub land and my frustrations with mind set that encourages local folks to tear down what would become decent habitat in 20 years for a promised gain that never materialises is one of my soap box stamping, tub thumping, head banging issues - particularly as the herd of rescued babies grows, pretty soon we'll have to instigate a stacking system on the hilltop, elephants standing on top of one another.

    So, after months of groping through the forest, giving credence to rumours and hearsay, in my usual un-scientific way, pushing anecdotes and theories, throwing up wild accusations based on the scantest of evidence I was pleased to see that I'm not the only person that has noticed that the oranges are dieing on the vine because cheap Chinese fruits are coming down the river and irrigation isn't as easy as it seems, the rubber trees are standing, metre high, waiting for another six years of investment before a crop can be got and all the while local folks are getting poorer and the local wildlife is becoming less existent.

    Except they've noticed something larger - an entity no less than NASA has spotted something from space and is awarding around US$800,000 (not much for NASA I know, the price a squeeze of grease on the bolt on the wheel of the Mars lander) "to determine the effects of the explosive expansion of rubber cultivation in Montane Mainland Southeast Asia (MMSEA) on regional water and carbon dynamics."

    If you can see it from space it must be big, I reckon, the report didn't say what they'd noticed, perhaps the river's got redder? - I've never been sure I believed the account of the British Consul to the North when, in 1914 he stood, almost at the spot where I now type, at what must have been this time of year and wrote "the river itself was a mighty expanse flowing swift and clear, with just the top of an island showing, and far away on the other side the bank rose fully as high again, lined with row upon row of tall palms, looking like small shrubs in the distance" - well, it all makes sense, but clear? Did our great muddy river ever run clear? If so how many tonnes of red clay are being washing from China to Vietnam every second that haven't been doing so from time immemorial? Where does it drop out of the flow? Where does it come from? How long before all of the mountains in Tibet have been worn down and flowed to the sea? Will the river then run backwards? - of course I'm being stupid but it will be interesting if the study can find out even a few of these things.

    One final point before I hand you over to NASA, another wild anecdotal observation from the ground, I get the feeling that, at least on the Thai side of the Golden Triangle, they may be missing out by concentrating only on rubber - that was last year's get-rich-quick crop, nowadays everyone is clearing and planting for biofuel - I haven't looked into it but at least this means that the farmers might get a return on their work within a year (?) and be able to start paying off their land debts. The effect on the natural environment, regional water and carbon dynamics and the price of elephant grazing land remains to be seen - but can be guessed at - the effect, even more seriously and less selfishly, across on the jungles and wildlife populations of Laos and our neighbours that still harbour wildlife, well, we'll have to wait until NASA can tell us.
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NASA Awards East-West Center $826,639 For Environmental Study

June 17, 2008

The East-West Center (EWC) was awarded a three-year contract from NASA for a projected total of $826,639 to determine the effects of the explosive expansion of rubber cultivation in Montane Mainland Southeast Asia (MMSEA) on regional water and carbon dynamics.

"Hydrologic change within this region, which comprises approximately half of Cambodia, Laos, Burma, Thailand, Vietnam and China's Yunnan Province, could have serious consequences for the approximately 200 million inhabitants of mainland Southeast Asia's lowlands and for the climate of monsoon Asia," according to Jefferson Fox, East-West Center Senior Fellow, and member of the team heading up the project.

Responding to China's increased demand for rubber, subsistence farmers in MMSEA are rapidly transitioning from the traditional practice of shifting cultivation to commercial agriculture. The dramatic changes in land cover and land use have significant implications for rural livelihoods, cultural traditions, biodiversity, and watershed hydrology.

The proposed study will bring together a multidisciplinary team of specialists in three fields (remote sensing/land cover-land use, ecosystem modeling, and hydrology) from the East-West Center, the University of Hawaii at Manoa, the National University of Laos, Harvard University, and the Carnegie Institution.

Don Sao Island to Magnetize over 120,000 people

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 03:49:00 GMT

A new treatment available only to guests in the Golden Triangle - never again lose those pesky screws, easily pocket cash from beneath the sofa cushions of the rich, amaze your friends by always knowing North (even on cloudy days).

    While we cannot guarantee there are no unwanted side effects to the procedure we are sure that, like the snake whisky, they wouldn't be allowed to do it if it wasn't safe.

    Would they?

    (with apologies to Phanonmsinh, fount of all knowledge on Laos Hydropower)

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Donesao Island to magnetize over 120,000 tourists (KPL) A well-known tourism site 'Donesao' island in Tonpheung district, Bokeo province is estimated to welcome more than 120,000 visitors, said an official.
Director General of Donsao Tourism Site, Mr Pan Thipphavanh, continued that the number of tourists is increasing constantly, especially Thai tourists representing almost 90 per cent of the total tourists.
The entrance fee is not expansive, just only 2,700 kip or 10 baht per person.
Donesao tourism site has opened since 1996 and attracted only 1,000 visitors, however in 2000 the number of visitors increased to 70,000 people.
Last year, Donsao tourism site has been able to attract over 110,000 arrivals, where 20 ferries and 60 speedboats are available to serve visitors, and generated considerably to the district with around 400 million kip.
In addition, Donsao also earns incomes from selling postcards and stamps calculated for 30 million kip annually.
Chief of Tonphueng district, Mr Chomsy Lattanapan said that over 60,000 arrivals have visited Tonphueng district during the festival of Doke Ngiew Ban held last February.
He continued that the district had 600 million kip income, of which 400 million kip was income from Donsao Island.

Back to the wild!

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 03:10:00 GMT

News from our Sri Lankan friend and colleague Srilal Miththapala on a project to dehabilitate several once wild orphaned eles.
____________________________________________

Hi John

Last Saturday 8 juvenile orphaned elephants who had been rehabilitated at the elephant transit home at Uda Walawe national park were released back into the wild.

Some pics to share with you

Srilal

http://www.srilankaelephant.com/

http://www.serendibleisure.com/

...nothing quite like it for cooling the blood.

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 01:59:00 GMT

Actually, now you come to mention it, how strangely anatomically aware Flanders and Swann were in their lyricisation of the courting ritual of hippopotami - when you can't sweat and, in the case of hippos at least, don't have large ears to flap there really is nothing quite like mud, glorious mud.

Luckily for our heated beasts, though too young to be amorous, mud is something of which we have a plentiful supply and typically it is Lynchee and new found friend Manau that take full advantage...

....and after all that fun and self indulgence, what better way to relax than Manau's choice, just to prove that when you're young, care free and in the company of friends one or two things do compare to mud in the satisfaction stakes!

Sub-speciation (on the conservation benefits of coming from a small family)

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 02:46:00 GMT

It seems every time you open your copy of Elephant Monthly nowadays there's a new sub-species to remember, we were content and happy when all we had to remember was elephas and their ugly cousins over in loxodonta - Asian elephants and African elephants.

    We read of a couple of eles possibly still hanging out in a small forest in South Africa, pygmy elephants hiding in the central African jungle and down in Borneo - scientists across the world have been poking around in damp dung in mosquito ridden jungles, rushing it back to the labs and sticking it under a microscope (or whatever they do to isolate DNA) and identifying differences between mainland populations - discovering that their project sample is, as they've always suspected, special.

    I have to admit to being a sceptic in this game, I tend to think that if it looks like an elephant, smells like an elephant and charges like an elephant then, well, it is probably an elephant. I can look at an Asian or and African ele in silhouette and say, hand on heart, yep, that's a different animal - related but entirely different.

    I'll need some convincing on pygmy races living within distinct populations even though Darwin pointed out that many subspecies evolved this way, trapped in isolated habitat they evolved special anatomical tools or behavioural patterns to fill a niche available in their habitat island.

    Our friendly subspecies of eles (and tigers for that matter) have just kept doing what eles do, alright they tend to be smaller but might this not be due to climate and habitat type, or part of a geographical trend? The Asian elephants we find in Thailand tend to be smaller (or at least shorter) than those I knew in Nepal - how far down the Darwinian ladder do we have to go to become a subspecies?  Even within our camp we've got long and short legs, large and small ears, sunken and pronounced foreheads; but then, I look very different to most of the mahouts and no-one's claiming we're a separate species - well the mahouts try to disassociate themselves from me frequently but that doesn't count.

    But I'm not a DNA scientist and no matter whether the idea of subspeciation is justified on the grand scale of what we can see and touch the perception of being an entirely new, previously unrecognised, beast carries a great advantage.

    If you're an isolated pocket of a large species, a few hundred eles living on an island, then it is sad if you are hunted out, your habitat dissappears and you have nowhere to go, your extirpation is an unhappy day for those who have given themselves the job of protecting you but as for the rest of the world, we tut and worry briefly, and move on - after all there are thousands of your cousins left on the mainland, let's concentrate on saving viable populations.

    However, if you're the last remaining hundred of your kind, the last chance to see and study, if the world lets you go they've lost you forever, if the word is extinction rather than extirpation then imagine the arsenal of weapons that can be bought to your defence, the attention that can be pulled your way, the funds that can be raised for your protection and your study; imagine the tourists and elephant specialists who'll travel halfway around the world, stay in luxury hotels and pay guides just to catch a glimpse of you.

    So, sceptic though I am, if I thought I'd get away with it I'd be out there DNA testing Nam Khong, Elephas maximus Goldentrianglensis anyone?
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PS. The piece below that inspired me to start thinking about this (below) turns out not to be a little more complicated as it covers the discovery that an apparently new subspecies may, in fact, be the last remnants of an already recognised but considered extinct subspecies moved from their native habitat a century ago. Techically an invasive non-native species I guess!

PPS. Shouldn't a pygmy Asian elephant carry the scientific name Elephas maximus minimus?

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Presumed Extinct Javan Elephants May Have Been Found Again - In Borneo
The Borneo pygmy elephant may not be native to Borneo after all. Instead, the population could be the last survivors of the Javan elephant race - accidentally saved from extinction by the Sultan of Sulu centuries ago, a new publication suggests.
The origins of the pygmy elephants, found in a range extending from the north-east of the island into the Heart of Borneo, have long been shrouded in mystery. Their looks and behaviour differ from other Asian elephants and scientists have questioned why they never dispersed to other parts of the island.
But a new paper published supports a long-held local belief that the elephants were brought to Borneo centuries ago by the Sultan of Sulu, now in the Philippines, and later abandoned in the jungle. The Sulu elephants, in turn, are thought to have originated in Java.
Javan elephants became extinct some time in the period after Europeans arrived in South-East Asia. Elephants on Sulu, never considered native to the island, were hunted out in the 1800s.
"Elephants were shipped from place to place across Asia many hundreds of years ago, usually as gifts between rulers," said Mr Shim Phyau Soon, a retired Malaysian forester whose ideas on the origins of the elephants partly inspired the current research. "It's exciting to consider that the forest-dwelling Borneo elephants may be the last vestiges of a subspecies that went extinct on its native Java Island, in Indonesia, centuries ago."
If the Borneo pygmy elephants are in fact elephants from Java, an island more than 1,200 km (800 miles) south of their current range, it could be the first known elephant translocation in history that has survived to modern times, providing scientists with critical data from a centuries-long experiment.
Scientists solved part of the mystery in 2003, when DNA testing by Columbia University and WWF ruled out the possibility that the Borneo elephants were from Sumatra or mainland Asia, where the other Asian subspecies are found, leaving either Borneo or Java as the most probable source.
The new paper, "Origins of the Elephants Elephas Maximus L. of Borneo," published in this month's Sarawak Museum Journal shows that there is no archaeological evidence of a long-term elephant presence on Borneo.
"Just one fertile female and one fertile male elephant, if left undisturbed in enough good habitat, could in theory end up as a population of 2,000 elephants within less than 300 years," said Junaidi Payne of WWF, one of the paper's co-authors. "And that may be what happened in practice here."
There are perhaps just 1,000 of the elephants in the wild, mostly in the Malaysian state of Sabah. WWF satellite tracking has shown they prefer the same lowland habitat that is being increasingly cleared for timber rubber and palm oil plantations. Their possible origins in Java make them even more a conservation priority.
"If they came from Java, this fascinating story demonstrates the value of efforts to save even small populations of certain species, often thought to be doomed," said Dr Christy Williams, coordinator of WWF's Asian elephant and rhino programme. "It gives us the courage to propose such undertakings with the small remaining populations of critically endangered Sumatran rhinos and Javan rhinos, by translocating a few to better habitats to increase their numbers. It has worked for Africa's southern white rhinos and Indian rhinos, and now we have seen it may have worked for the Javan elephant, too."

Photographing the photographer

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 01:28:00 GMT

Had you been watching the webcam yesterday you'd have seen some odd behaviour and I'm not talking about the meeting between the mahouts and our insurance broker about their new package, when and where they're allowed to break themselves and where to tell the ambulance driver to go etc.

    More exciting even than that, you'd have noticed some odd movement patterns and, that rarest of sights, me riding an ele.

    It was all part of the Directive genius of Palani Mohan who, despite swearing never to photograph an ele again after his book Vanishing Giants, found himself in camp on a mission from the Swiss company that look after Lamyai and Meena, Finass Reisen, through the Four Seasons Tented Camp adoption scheme to take the portraits of their two eles and the wizened, weathered faces of Lung Pat and Lung Lun.

    Being a lover of light Palani couldn't help himself playing with the colours and patterns in the elephant camp...

...Sakura wants to get into the action as Phu Ki remembers his Ashes and Snow days...

...but this time only photographing camp life, no funny poses...

...though the human element did require an element of choreography (but at least they got some new Burmese hats out of it)...

...apparently the colour of the water sets off their eyes...

Changing the flow (hydropower ideas allegedly just across the river)

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 02:47:00 GMT

I have written in the past of my worries for the large chunk of forest just across the big river, the one that stretches all the way to China and contains wild eles, dreams of tigers and even faintly whispered hunters' gossip of a remaining rhino or two.

    Though it is a strategic border - it has provided cover for armies running from all four of the bordering countries, the Tony Poe worked from there for awhile and who can remember WWII and beyond nowadays? - it is one that has been left as a buffer.

    The main success of this forest has been due as much to it's inaccessibility as anything else, there are no roads through it because it is not really on the road to anywhere, or at least anywhere between which anyone would want to drive - until now.

    Now, in the new era of openess and Chinese powerhouse economics, now it finds itself on the edge of the new road from Singapore to the Chinese market, or, more properly, from the Chinese factories to the port on the Straits of Malacca or, so they dream - so the British dreamt in the 1800's when goods flowed the other way and railways were the go - linking China with Burma's deep sea port capability in the Andaman sea.

    But this missive isn't supposed to be about that, if you want to follow pieces on this development I'll keep posting them on the 'backdoor' thread.

    A frequent contributor to that thread has been a Mr Phanomsinh, a Laos Hydropower expert with his news on the large hydropower projects set for the area in question, making electricity to sell to China and to Thailand - not necessarily good for our forest but given the demand isn't going to go away and given the alternative...

    His latest blog, though, showed what I hope may be a change of thought; a move to develop a small scale hydropower plant to run the village directly across the big river from us (who currently buy expensive electricity from Thailand generated by cheap coal from Laos) by drowning the minimum for forest and only producing as much as is needed to run the show.

    Given the country's track record of massive HEP projects, World Bank and otherwise funded, it is a little surprising to find this touted as a development direction for the mountainous, forested or denuded country with a tiny population - Laos has said in the past that it wishes to be the 'battery of South East Asia'.

    There is a phrase attributed to the ideas of HM King Bhumibol of Thailand which, if Mr Phanomsinh's blog proves to ring true, would seem to fit here - Sufficiency Economy.

    I have to admit to being in favour.
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Bokeo hydropower plant on track

Construction of the Nam Nhone hydropower project, a small-scale power plant to be located in Bokeo province, will start later this year.

"The main components are the powerhouse and dam and we will begin work after the wet season," said an official from the Contract Negotiation and Management Division of the Energy Promotion and Development Department, in an interview on Friday.

The hydropower plant, located in Tonpheugn district, will cost about 39 billion kip (US$4.5 million) to build. It is an investment between two businesses from Hong Kong with a shareholding of 70 percent, and a Lao investor.

Land is being cleared at the site to build the powerhouse and an access road.

A 22kV transmission line will be installed to bring electricity to the site. This will be 6km long and cost about 960 million kip (US$100,000).

"The plant is expected to be finished by the end of next year and energy generation should start in early 2010," the official said.

The hydropower plant will have an installation capacity of 2.4 megawatts and a forecasted annual production of about 10.4GWh. The electricity will be sold to Electricite du Laos (EDL) for supply to Bokeo consumers.

The investors and EDL signed two agreements for energy purchase in February and a concession agreement in March 2006 following a feasibility study in 2005.

"This project won't affect the environment or local people because there won't be a large reservoir; there will be no population resettlement," the official said.

Instead of a dam, the project will operate using a weir to raise the water level at the intake. As the water reservoir is small and will flood a very limited area, no homes or farmland land will be flooded, and the plant will not significantly change the water flow in the river.

It is expected the plant will contribute to the development of industrial activities in the province, creating jobs and stimulating the local economy with a fishing basin.

New infrastructure such as a road and a bridge will improve access to farmland, and the project will directly contribute to the electrification of local villages.

"The government is promoting the development of small-scale power plants and Nam Nhone is a model example of a private small-scale investment," the official said.

The government considers this project important because it will be the only local energy source for Bokeo province, and may replace Thai electricity imports.

The government is urging the building of small and medium power plants for local supply to reduce the need for power imports. These plants will have installation capacities ranging from 2 to 100 megawatts.

Other small hydro plants planned for construction are on the Nam Ham in Botaen district, Xayaboury province, Tadslen in Xepon district, Savannakhet province, and the Nam Sim in Viengxay district, Huaphan province.

Laos currently has 11 major hydropower plants and at least 36 smaller projects. These generate energy for both domestic and export markets and have a combined installation capacity of more than 670 megawatts. The 36 smaller hydropower plants are government investments.

Founder's Day Fun!

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 09:07:00 GMT

In order to celebrate special occasions, because the stars feel right or because we just feel like it we often invite children from the local villages into camp to meet the elephants, get a short lecture on things pachydermic (well, the non-horned pachyderms anyway) with a good feed donated by the good Food and Beverage and Human Resources folks up at Anantara thrown into the bargain.

This June the 4th, to celebrate the birthday of our Founder, we invited our new friends from the local Akha village of Doi Sa Ngo and were treated to a show of Akha traditional dress and a dance to boot - hope they enjoyed it as much as we did.

First the education, a newly returned Oil finally gives her elephant lecture - I've been trying to get her to do this for years, though the kids at the bottom seem to have noticed Meena arriving...

...Bua Tong isn't phased by the dress and eats anyway like the sensible ele she is...

...the small folks get to ride, Boo See doesn't seem to worried by K. Ke having gone on leave, but as ever, where there's food there's often calm...

...Jenny and Boun Na are pretty relaxed too...

...and there's always time for a photoshoot, Nong Dah, as always slightly shyer than Meena who is happy to climb the fence to get into shot...

...Seang gets to pose too...

...Bua Tong and Pleum give rides the proper way...

...the kids then danced for Meena, which seems only fair...

...before a monstrous meal...

...in a monstrous downpour!

Day of Destiny (letting the kids tread the boards for the Foundation)

Sat, 31 May 2008 01:11:00 GMT

"Don't put your daughter on the stage, Mrs Worthington!", so spake Mr Coward some time ago "you must honestly confess the width of her seat would surely defeat her chances of success" he suggested; but, whilst his advice was most welcome, sometimes the best advice is that which you ignore.

    When the chance came for a few of our wide seated boys and girls to strut their stuff for a German TV crew and a donation to the Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation who was I to deny them their moment in the sun, the smell of the crowd and roar of the greasepaint and all that.

    Over a couple of days K. Seang led a family outing of Phu Ki, Jenny, Moskva and Riga - Manau went along for the ride as she won't be separated from Moskva nowadays and probably ended up being the star.

...no mistaking who the boss may be...

...Lawan is no longer with us so there were no demands for the larger trailer, the better make-up artist and the imported mountain air - though with Jenny around wardrobe will always be a problem, Seang handled it all...

...K. Cha on a break from filming, trying to persuade his wife that there are no groupies for the tusker driver on this filmset and that she's not to read the celebrity gossip mag.s for a month or two...

...Moskva getting ready for his windswept-hero-on-the-cliffs shot (or the Thai version thereof) not sure his damsel is paying attention though...

...the crew wait expectantly for the 'family' herd shot...

...and some twixt take grazing.

    Well done to Seang and the crew - keep your eyes peeled for 'Day of Destiny', if I learn more I'll keep you posted.

It's no fun being in musth, so why bother?

Sun, 18 May 2008 09:51:00 GMT

    Poor old Boun Liang, Lucky Boy as he's known across at Four Seasons; he's in musth again, I've never known an ele quite like him for his hormones, he'll pop into and out of musth at irregular times and in irregular places and no-one seems to be able to tell us why.

    As usual I have my own theory and, as usual, the fact that it is unproven and unprovable won't stop me burdening you with it. We bought him in Phrae, he was sold to us as a tuskless male of ex-logging provenance - his paperwork was many years out of date and covered in inky thumb prints, to legally purchase him we had to track down the descendant of a long dead inky thumbed master mahout from the mountains of Galieng country.

    We spotted early on (in fact before we bought him but don't tell the boss) that he did have tusks at one point and that they'd been ripped out at the root and that he was carrying massive infections where his ivory should have been, he was obviously starved and had been worked to breaking point - he's the ele of which Mor Tom at the T.E.C.C. said "Good heart makes a bad businessman".

    With a life history like this, suddenly coming into good food, light or no work and good daily care; wouldn't a body bereft of energy for thirty years perform its most energy intensive function and pop into musth as often as possible? - perhaps in those years he was so underfed as to never have a musth period?

    Outside his musth periods he's beautifully calm and not dangerously obnoxious as he is when hormonal we daily clean the pits that remained - talking with Richard Lair yesterday he explained that there have been several spates of tusk stealing, that actually cutting the tusks causes no pain but the problem comes when they cut too high up and have to go through the fleshy core, this can cause an infection which will become intensely painful, Richard surmises that what then happened with Boun Liang is the remainder of the infected tusk was removed by the owner and mahout prior to selling.

    I also learned from an old time mahout that another problem with losing the tusks on your elephant in the logging days was that you were downgraded in status and pay as the usefulness of your ele went down - in essence you lose your forklift bonus.

    (I couldn't get Youtube to play his video but it is available here)

    So if, when in musth, you have to go around with a massive headache for anything up to six months a year, be in a bad mood and, be you a domestic elephant, not be in a position to receive the pampering you're used to - why bother? A common misconception is that it is the mating season and being in musth is like being in heat, not quite so as a male ele seems to be always ready for a bit of action - indeed the irony for those who believe this is that it is Phu Ki our young tusker who is getting his oats at the moment because Boun Liang is too violently bad tempered and separated from the other eles for their safety.

    The best reasoning I've read is that it is a deliberate season to persuade young bulls to challenge authority, African studies have shown that while males are happy to mate at any time it is the musth bulls who do get most of the girls. In the wild, given the longevity of eles, a large dominant male may rule the roost and be able to monopolise the breeding over several herds for as long as thirty to forty years - not good for genetic diversity or the morals of your daughters.

    Musth, they contend, is nature's way of filling the young lads with testosterone and bravado, with not a little violence, in order to allow them to have a shout at keeping the genes diverse - in nature, nothing in it's right mind enters a fight it cannot win as the stakes of injury are too high, so musth puts the guys out of their right mind and makes them just psycho enough that even the big boys won't mess with them.

    Makes sense to me - unfortunately none of this helps poor Boun Liang whose authority figure to rebel against is us and whose would-be consorts are too fragile to be left in the hands of a mad-man - we just have to get as close as he lets us and help him through it again.

A little trouble in big China? (Our closest wild elephants)

Thu, 08 May 2008 02:16:00 GMT

I feel a trip coming on, my feet are itching, there's something happening close by that I think I should know more about - yes, there's a tonne of work to be done in camp and around the hotel but I'm also finding time to search through all my old newswire pieces - things that caught my eye back in the whirlwind of high season and filed in the recesses of my C:/ drive under look-at-later.

    Wild Chinese elephants? To tell the truth I've known of both the herds covered below (I believe there are two separate populations) for a while and have been looking to get up there.

    The first one covered in the piece below is perhaps the most intriguing because I am physically watching the wet season mist bubble over the top and run lava like into the Mekong of the far South Western corner of their potential (OK - highly theoretical but indulge me) range as I type.

    They find themselves, as it says in the piece, shared with Laos and basically still wild in the Bokeo, Nam Ha, Nam Fa reserves and a forgotten little back-water of China in what is now the real romantic Golden Triangle: where Laos, Burma and the Dai (or Shan in English, Thai Yai in Thai) autonomous region meet; between the ex-Shan state of Xishuanbanna (Sipsong Pan Na - 12,000 rice fields in Thai - given to the Chinese by the British to keep French hands off it back in the day) and the Laos city state town of Muang Sing - where the colonial mapping expeditions met and had what must have a decidedly prickly black tie dinner.

    The second population - which I also want to visit but not quite with the same passion - where I believe the publicised 'attacks' occurred are in the famous Elephant Valley north of the city of Jing Hong (Chiang Rung in Thai) where wild elephants and the tour buses of mass Chinese tourism (up in Jing Hong you can buy "Welcome to Thailand" and my, even poorer than today, 2004 Thai was good for communication) allegedly meet.

    The elephants are still wild but apparently sightings can be more or less guaranteed for hundreds of people a day; I'm interested to see how it is handled and just how wild they really are - doesn't sound like my cup of tea but if it raises money to keep wild elephants in the wild, who am I to argue?
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Protecting China's last elephant herd

In addition to sharing a border - and the Mekong River - with Laos, Yunnan province also shares China's last herd of Asian elephants, which in recent years has dwindled to only 400 elephants. The herd lives in nature reserves near the border between China and Laos.

This week the Yunnan Provincial Forestry Department met with their counterparts from Laos in Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture to discuss ways to protect the endangered Asian elephant, which falls under China's grade-one protection for endangered animal species.

The representatives from China and Laos reached four major agreements:

1. To educate villagers about how to protect elephants
2. To tighten hunting gun controls
3. To draft a plan for cross-border elephant protection and apply for international funds, and
4. To plan next year's annual meeting in Laos

There are roughly 30,000 Asian elephants left in South and Southeast Asia. Asian elephants average 3.2 meters in height and more than five tons. The animals spend most of their days looking for food, understandable considering that they require around 300 kilograms of it each day.

Although it is less populated than other parts of China, Xishuangbanna is still feeling the impact of China's rapid economic development. Elephants, normally docile creatures, are known to attack when feeling encroached upon by humans. In the last few weeks, there have been two elephant attacks upon humans in Xishuangbanna.

In January, American tourist Jeremy Allen McGill was seriously injured by an elephant attack which left him with eight broken bones and injuries to his lungs, stomach and intestines. Weeks later another elephant attack ended in fatality when on the night of Chinese New Year an elephant in Xishuangbanna attacked and killed Zeng Shaoping as he returned from holiday festivities.

Where d'you want me to put 'em?

Wed, 07 May 2008 04:10:00 GMT

It is in the quiet times that you get to thinking isn't it? When the world's locked out and there isn't something to be done in half an hour three quarters of an hour's drive away, when you're driving Moskva back from town through the sunset, when it's half raining and you're lying in a hammock next to Bua Tong wondering if she could look any more like a caricature ele.

When the guests aren't so many and all the work is either in Thai or takes skills you don't have, when you sit by the rising river where the babies are playing in the swamp, you look around and you think, what are we going to do with all these things in fifteen years time?

    There are many debates raging about the best ways to look after, make a living from/make a living for domestic eles, what is acceptable and what is not; sometimes it seems that if you stick five of us in a room and we might be able to agree on the colour of the ceiling as long as the light was switched on but that's about it.

    One thing I think we all, at least the conservation minded folks, sort of can shake hands on is that in an ideal world the eles would be free in the forest and not have to be constrained in any way or beholden to man.

    Whither the mahouts and their families? Whither tradition? Well we did say an ideal world and with a few honourable exclusions I think we also agree that the world isn't yet ideal - whether or not it is getting more or less ideal is a debate for another page.

    So if we're to de-habilitate our eles how would we go about it?

    Some folks contend that just letting them go into Thailand's National Park system would solve the problem, money to support the ex-elephant owners could then be raised by charging guests to come and see them - I like this idea but how practical is it? Pondering, I would say we are some way off this as a usable solution because...

    1, To the best of my knowledge no carrying capacity work has been done on the National Parks that don't currently, but could, hold elephants to let us know how eles per square km could be released - those parks that exist are far from prime ele habitat of swamp and grassland so my feeling is the capacity would be relatively low - is there enough National Park for 3,456 eles? (In 1990 Peter Jackson and the Asian Elephant Specialist Group estimated the capacity of Thailand's whole National Parks system, based on some rough but well informed assumptions, to be 1,500 at best).

    2, Several of those parks that do hold wild elephants are already facing Human Elephant Conflict problems, possibly due to illegal encroachment and inappropriate planting of fodder crops close to park boundaries, wild elephant populations artificially increased due to year round access to water etc.

    3, While there are eco- and otherwise tours operating in Khao Yai National Park, I know of no other park in Park in Thailand where ele spotting is considered easy and safe, almost by definition wild ele spotting in the mountains of South East Asia must be an exercise in limited numbers of tourists quietly tracking (or overlooking) elephants' favourite spots and waiting such as at the Baan Na project in Laos. The wild elephants I have seen in Thailand have either been products of two days hard trekking or sheer blind luck - but none a bankable, paying experience, at least not one you'd want to rely on to keep three thousand families out of the poorhouse.

    The video isn't mine, but is of a wild ele in Khao Yai.

    So, that's all very depressing, John, easy to say it is too difficult and give up but what would your solution be? Can't hold the status quo - where would you go from here?

    I'm not saying it is not possible, just saying that we need to do some work before letting our eles go into the forest - a good start would be to do some carrying capacity work on those parks and other public lands that could but don't hold eles.

    Here at the Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation, Anantara and Four Seasons we have recently been described as an halfway house for eles, well, what could that be the next step?

    How about luxury residences set in privately owned, or Government rented land, currently devoid of wild elephants, part of your room rate/timeshare pricing includes the care of one or two elephants, their mahouts and families that live on 'your' land. If the land is large enough, the eles can roam where they please but are still looked after by the mahouts for additional feeding, insurance that they don't bother what neighbours we have (some girls wander by mistake), be in the ele-neighbourhood to make sure there are no nasty surprises.

    Some days you may never see your elephant but your spa sala, your restaurants overlook the wallows and salt-licks and you have the pleasure of knowing he/she is there and free to be an elephant.

    Any takers?

Sometimes it takes a VIP visit (learning more about the Galieng eles)

Tue, 06 May 2008 05:27:00 GMT

The other day, by one of the sheer coincidences that governs these things, the same day we were both featured in the Washington Post, Khun Lek and her team from the Elephant Nature Park found time to come and visit the Foundation and Anantara camps.

    I've been down there several times, enjoyed it and, each time, extended an invitation for a reciprocal visit. But Lek's a busy lady carrying the cause of Thai elephants internationally and so her visit was long overdue. As with all these things it was work as Lek is helping Alex Godfrey of the Newcastle University (UK) and Naresuan University (Phitsanoluk, Thailand) to compile as complete a picture of the demographics (or technically, I suppose eleographics) of the domestic elephant population of Northern Thailand.

    A set of figures also long overdue; as early as 1997 Richard Lair and the FAO were pointing to the lack of baseline data in helping conserve and manage the domestic population.

    So Alex has left us a list of questions for all our mahouts - a project given to Mor Cherry as the closest thing we have to a resident academic nowadays. Interestingly this is the second MSc we have helped on in the past few weeks, the first from Dr Lorraine Moore of the University of Manchester being perhaps more truly demographic in dealing with elephant people - a set of fun interviews in which we learned much about the folks who have been living with us for a time.

    But back to eles, Lek was able to supply us with two pieces of much more juicy news - first some good news about Boun Na, it turns out that the calf that we have always believed to be, kind of oddly, with a Japanese family in Chiang Mai is actually a famous young bull called Jungle Boy living at Lek's place, having been bought by the family and placed there.

    Secondly, and perhaps more interesting to those who don't look Boun Na daily in the eye or get to visit Jungle Boy on a regular basis, our very own Phu Ki, it seems is a superstar - we have known for a long time that some of the elephant shots from Gregory Colbert's Ashes and Snow Exhibition were taken at Lek's place - scrubbing through the website as I have been doing I think I also recognise Pinnewalla and, perhaps, Angkor? - but it is an excellent artistic website without a back button so you only get one chance at a lot of shots so who can really tell?

    Well, it turns out that when Mr Colbert needed a tusker who could pose (oh, and don't we know he can pose) Phu Ki was bought in as a stunt double for his brother who lives permanently at Lek's - so I searched the website (http://www.ashesandsnow.org/) and I think I found at least one picture.

    You have to hang the boss and your computer department's bandwidth usage monitoring, go into the enhanced experience and then spend a couple of worthwhile hours poking around amidst the art (I did this on the elephant camp wireless on a rainy Sunday afternoon - it is, after all, what Sunday afternoons are for). Of all the tuskers up there, we found one shot of him; he's the boy half sitting down in an endless, inch-deep, placid lake - there may well be others as we only saw about half the shots up there.

    So, good luck, let the elephant pictures be your reason to be there and treat a pic of Phu Ki as a bonus if you find him!

The wet season's upon us, time for some new foot wear (not quite wellies!)

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 06:38:00 GMT

...the sky has dropped 100 ml in two days; the floor outside my room is covered in disoriented ex-flying termites; the weather is cool, fresh and green; I have seen my first Blue Winged Pitta of the season.

    All this can only mean one thing, I think I can officially proclaim the start of the wet season - it is quiet in camp and we are using the time to prepare for the deluge, Ke and the Galieng boys are getting a new roof, the eles are getting some concrete steps, the other houses are getting new roofs, it won't be long before everyone is asking for new boots to keep the dampness out from between the toes.

    Luckily, as I was browsing the fashion pages of the New York Times this morning an article caught my eye.

    It seems that Carolyn and Perry Butler have exceeded even their astounding previous efforts and have managed to persuade Manolo Blahnik to design a shoe for Nam Chok, Pumpui and all the other Foundation elephants - they won't be wearing them though, you get to wear them, we get the cash - since Lawan left I don't think any of the girls could carry a pair of high heels anyway!

_____________________________________

April 22nd, 2008 12:10 PM

Charity Walk | Blahnik Steps Up

By JILL FERGUS

Manolo Blahnik has helped out during many a crisis of footwear, but coming to the aid of Thai elephants? It's not such a stretch for the shoemaker, who just debuted a special-edition stiletto to benefit the Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation. Blahnik got involved after Carolyn Butler, the owner of the Napa Valley shoe shop Footcandy, vacationed with her husband at the Four Seasons Tented Camp in northern Thailand. Butler fell in love with the resort's resident elephants and later convinced Blahnik to create the shoes, a pair of sexy pony-hair, leopard-print pumps with patent leather trim, three-and-a-half-inch heels and an open toe. All proceeds from the $645 shoes, which are sold exclusively at Footcandy (and can be shipped anywhere), go toward creating a safe haven for abused elephants.

Tags: footcandy, four seasons chiangmai, golden triangle asian elephant foundation, Jeffries Blackerby, Manolo Blahnik, Travel

Cherry picking the best of the vets!

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 01:26:00 GMT

After a successful year feeling the bumps and bruises, the scrapes and scratches and inspecting the dung of our elephants; a year which saw him move from nervous newby to a point at which he is now often the only vet on site at the Thai Elephant Conservation Centre Hospital; a year when he represented us and the Mobile Elephant Clinic at the Elefantasia Elephant Festival in Laos - where he had to sedate and handle an aggressive musth bull amidst a crowd of onlookers; a year where he made more than a few friends up here in the Golden Triangle; Mor Pap, our first adopted vet, has decided leave us and accept a job with the Royal White Elephant Stables in Lampang - he will also spend time helping out at the hospital.

    Our elephants will have to get used to a new pair of investigative hands but we believe we've come up trumps in finding Dr Tittiporn Keratimanoch D.V.M, or Mor Cherry as she is universally (and more pronouncably) known.

    Cherry learned her trade at Chulalongkorn University Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and has also had a cameo role in a previous missive when her presentation on neo-natal care provided us with the excuse to go to Lampang, visit some old friends and pretend that it was work.

    A lover of elephants, her trunkside manner has won her many friends already, pachydermic and those with thin skins. She has agreed to spend fifteen days a month with us as we are now up to thirty elephants of all sizes, all playing in the recently created mud, we manage to provide her with a sprain a day to massage - though yesterday we caught her helping out Pa Nang at the weaving table putting the finishing touches to our unique, handmade silk "Tawan & Lynchee" design scarves (available from the Wives' Shop - all silk grown at home, dyed and woven on site by mahouts' wives - all profits to the weaving wives).

...Cherry reaches to give Tong Kam her ectoparasite injection across at the Four Seasons camp...

...at Anantara treating an abrasion on Phu Ki's old logging injury...

...treating Tong Kwao's injuries from that last night of polo when she got a little carried away playing with the T.E.C.C. baby boys, silly girl (Tong Kwao that is)...

...and caught demonstrating her mahout skills, hiding behind HM the King and riding one of the said T.E.C.C. babies before his wild fling with Tong Kwao.

    One day I'll get a picture of her face - but she's always so hard at work it is difficult!

Family Days at the Beach (Songkran again!)

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 01:44:00 GMT

Did I say, just a couple of blogs ago, that the last wild fling was over? Knowing Songkran was upcoming and knowing what I know of that time, did I really believe that life would return to normal?

    Well, of course not, but I hope you noticed I did manage to get the Anantara ele-bios mostly updated in between the flinging and the flying, so some work was done before the madness of the Thai New Year festival engulfed us and the water filled the air.

    This year our front gate water sprayers - the betrunked cannons of last year, Makam and Bua Tong, were hors de combat - Makam looking after Nam Khong and Bua Tong not confident without her friend.

    Tong Kwao sprays only backwards, Jenny just likes to splash and the Galieng elephants frown on such behaviour anyway so it was left to the mahouts to uphold that side of the attack.

    After a couple of afternoons of double dunkings (the babies were all bathed in the river first) we took the show to the beach where local folks - and mahouts - dine half submerged in the river while the sand banks and tall sacchuram islands await the rains and flood times...

...the walk out is always fun, pick-ups full of people slow down to splash the eles, keep 'em cool, and the grass verges are a buffet of fresh fodder at this time of year, add to this the local folks with their offerings of sugar cane and fruits; as long as there's a good place to rest and the distances are short it is great to break the routine...

...and when your destination has deep cool water and lots of grass...

...then life cannot be that bad, we spent the afternoon giving rides to the massed crowds and playing with the kids in the water, everyone camped down on the beach and - aside from a storm taking away the tent - all were refreshed for the public face day, the parade.

    I discovered on day one that my water proof camera, specially purchased to bring you the latest intimate photos, errrrm, wasn't waterproof so I didn't get any photos of the parade itself as that really was just a giant iced water fight.

    But here are a few pic's, Tong Kwao in her Sunday best...

    Hurry up and wait, all dressed up, but nowhere to go - every once in awhile, when it gets too hot, pop out to the street and get a soaking...

    ...and Phu Ki rests his trunk before his part carrying the boss of our local council above the crowds but not beyond the reach of a good soaking...

    ...and now the madness really is over, perhaps we can get some work done!

Who cares what the excuse is? (I love a good parade, me)

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 02:06:00 GMT

As these things often do it started out as a quiet request, the temple that had lent us the time-keeper's gong (I couldn't persuade the mahouts to dress up as the Rank gongster) for polo had had one of their monks promoted and were to hold a small ceremony to celebrate. Did we have a spare elephant?

    Well, if it is for the community, if we can rest him enough, then my answer is an automatic yes - particularly for temples, a chance for mahout and ele alike to make merit.

    We were busy yesterday, it was such a small thing that, for the first time ever, I almost didn't bother to go to town and check all was well - but there had been some whispering that this might be larger, some folks whispered the TECC had sent up three tuskers from Lampang, staff who attend the temple had talked of abluting and attending the ceremony, all-in-all I thought I'd better go up and check.

    Hmmmm..... I'm still not sure what we were dancing in honour of (not the first time in my life) but dance we did, a quiet ceremony with Phu Ki adding decoration it was not.

...so, this was the sight that greeted me on arrival in Chiang Saen, the first inkling that this might be something larger, Phu Ki is at the back with war saddle...

...the TECC's big tusker with ancient Wat Pa Sak in the background...

...Phu Ki and Khun Bat from the Four Seasons camp draughted in as a foot soldier...

...before we formally enter Chiang Saen gate, the embodiment of King Meng Rai in the war saddle, K. Chaa driving, K. Ke, K. Bat, K. Rat as foot soldiers of the royal guard - for those with long memories, the guy in the hat is K. Tawat from the early days of the TECC eles at the Anantara camp...

...Phu Ki and King Meng Rai successfully enter the city walls...

...the monks watch the eles, watch the monks, watch the eles go by!

...immaculate... ermmm... balance. Think that was the excuse for this shot!

...even a royal escort elephant deserves a chance to cool off!

...the big tusker got to escort the H.M. the King...

...the monk we were honouring is the gentleman responsible for the famous Monks of Horseback of Mae Chan and they turned up to parade...

...his martial art Muay Thai monks were present to provide escort too...

...the ambulance, recently donated from last year's King's Cup Elephant Polo money, was present to back up the TECC operation...

...and I noticed, for the first time, the emblem of our local guarding infantry unit - what with our elephants at the Tri-athlon, the Elephant Polo, yesterday's parade and our up-coming "Songkran with the Elephants" celebration Chiang Saen is becoming a bit of an ele town!

The last wild fling is over (in the afterglow of polo)

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 01:31:00 GMT

There's a strange guilt like feeling around the place, in my bones and in the dusty air, a slight nag at the conscience as I sit here, drink coffee, and type - hard to put a finger on but, if we track it down, I think it is the lack of nagging need to finish this one job, get into the car, and get on with the next, for the first time in two months I don't have somewhere else to urgently be.

    Polo is over, the players have gone back to their normal (but not quite average) lives the playing elephants all passed the final inspection back onto the trucks, going back to their other lives rested, slightly fitter, slightly fatter, vitamined up and de-wormed.

    About 2.7 million baht - 25% of all money accumulated for the tournament, forget profits and losses, 25% OF THE TOTAL MONIES AMASSED - has gone, or will go, direct to the elephants, roughly evenly split between looking after the playing elephants to keep them during the event and the rest to be effectively spent on projects for the Thai Elephant Conservation Centre, probably in the form of a per diem and diesel fund to run the ambulance donated with last year's money.

    So the elephant camps return normal, thirty elephants between Four Seasons, Anantara and the Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation and we go back to housekeeping, I promise I'll update the website to let you know who the new guys are and where their funding's from, the charge for extra land is in an advanced stage and we'll be working on a nice new home for our charges in a local village, the silk project is running but needs to be written up, this blog, I promise, will begin to tick over again.

    But then, of course, it is nearly Songkran and Songkran means splashing and fun, so as 'after polo' was our refrain for the past two months perhaps 'after Songkran' will become our new excuse - but I'll try to keep you up to date.

The Wettest Rodeo (bathing the baby eles)

Sun, 23 Mar 2008 01:23:00 GMT

There is a lot going on outside camp nowadays, I seem to be spending most of my time behind the wheel of a car, to Chiang Rai twice to talk to land officers, to Chiang Mai to interview some frighteningly qualified and intelligent young ladies to help us through polo, to local villagers to find out if what land agents' maps said was true on the ground...

    ...anyway, you get the picture - too much outside and not enough ele!

    It is mid-March and summer is on its way, you have to rise at an early dawn to catch the cool breezes, the morning coffee looking across the river is now an exercise in enjoying the cool as opposed last month's shivering and waiting for the sun. Come mid afternoon, especially if you've been walking in the forest - or working up a sweat over a stressful keyboard in an air conditioned room - there is nothing better than a dip.

    About a week ago I stole an afternoon hour from all these planning meetings to spend in the river with my babies, I'd forgotten my camera that first time and promised to be back the next day to capture the antics - well I spent the next few days really working up a thirst for eles; steep sided 4WD switchbacks, PowerPoint presentations, muggy cassava filled clearings, under-air conditioned Government offices and the hallowed halls of Chiang Mai University all conspired to keep me away but that couldn't last forever....

...ever the otter, Tawan enjoys the current and getting washed down stream....

...Riga is just as difficult to stay on and often leaves any riders breathing water, Manau's just too cute and still has a crush on Moskva...

...of course, the smaller you are, the greater the star factor and so Manau is everyone's favourite to watch...

...while the smaller babies are always a job for professionals, even Pleum the washing machine can be ridden by a skilled and enthusiastic day visitor (with a little help from Sompong).

    Unfortunately, my video of the Lung Lord and Lynchee rodeo show failed to embed - eight seconds and a flailing trunk - but you might have some luck by clicking here

We need to be sure what we're breeding for...

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 03:37:00 GMT

I'll admit it, I have a problem of a sexual nature, well, more a reproductive dilemma I suppose. As you'd expect though, my furrowed brow is elephant related as I try to juggle my cold, hard, scientific, dogmatic background and the obvious happiness that greets every new elephant birth.

    I have long held that while there is so little work for elephants in Thailand, while, in order to turn a banana, they find themselves on the street or giving five hours of treks a day for a starvation wage; while there is nothing for them but tourist work and no forest to retire to at night; while all these situations hold I cannot see why on earth would think about increasing the population.

    I've always said that I'd rather work hard give the eles that exist a better life than create more - of course the problem is how to make sure it is not a Catch 22. Many owners wouldn't breed if there wasn't a market for baby elephants (in Laos and Cambodia a baby is seen as a liability, in Burma they smuggle them to Thailand), how do we ensure we're not creating, or at least feeding, that market - I believe the Rescue Rental idea is one such way, but that's another blog.

    By all means let's hold the population steady, let us - as the TECC are doing - investigate Artificial Insemination as a safety net against true extinction should that population collapse at some time in the future, but why on earth would we embark on breeding programmes?

    Most places that trumpet their mating eles - under slogans such as "Extinction is Forever" or "Breeding for the Continuation of the Species" - cannot lay claim to the title of Breeding Programme which, to me, infers some control, the keeping of a studbook, the deliberate broadening of the gene pool rather than one or two males getting their oats and cute baby elephants being produced.

    One camp in Ayuthhaya is taking a different controlled approach, breeding friendly elephants from friendly elephants, a deliberate domestication of the species after 4,000 years. The owner, K. Aom, points out that if domestic elephants are going to continue to have a place with us then they're going to have to be friendly and live well in increasingly less wild circumstances, live in close proximity with humans who - unlike mahouts - have not grown up with elephants and will not excuse the natural propensity of some to squash a person every once in awhile.

    If we accept K. Aom's 'if' then it is difficult to argue with his logic - if we go on at this rate there'll be not much left but cities and orchards; eles, if they are going to remain with us, must learn to go down the route of dogs or horses. My question would be, then, why?

    Why are we breeding? I was recently asked to support a campaign to let this current generation of domestic elephants die out as comfortably as possible and concentrate on helping our wild populations - perhaps returning as many domestics as possible to the wild, a well regarded Indian vet also whispered (over a beer) a campaign to ban domestic elephant breeding over there.

    From a cold conservation principle this makes sense, why do we need domestic elephants? Emotionally living in Thailand I can come up with 1,000,000 reasons (or at least 3,456) but none are scientific and none answers the pivotal question - what are the elephants born today going to be doing when they are 50? At least concentrating on the wild populations has the bonus of saving the forest as well as a species - should the wild population recover and should we run out of oil and need domestic elephants again, well, there are always the old ways of bringing wild elephants into the human population, nasty and unnecessary as they are today.

    I didn't add my name to the campaign though, I acknowledge the sense it makes from a distance but it doesn't feel right when there's a baby elephant headbutting your knees or suckling on your thumb - perhaps I am too close, often being trampled by, the problem.

    So, having once again acknowledged that everyone's argument has value and that the scientists probably hold the high ground and my friends and colleagues hold an emotional but non-sustainable island in the flood where do I stand with my charges, the ones that caused this dilemma in the first place?

    First, the part that I can do not much about, over at Four Seasons Boun Liang has allegedly found his form and taken a shine to both Yuki and Puang Phet (I'd expect it from the former but expected better from the latter), ought I be overjoyed as the mahouts and all guests are or ought I be holding onto the moral high ground? Well, an over amorous embrace doth not a baby make so I get to dodge the issue for 22 months and then, if faced with a baby, probably, honestly, come down on the side of the emotionalists.

    Second, Boun Na's owner has asked for her to go on mating leave, do I lecture the man that I believe his livelihood and generational lifestyle, that of his village, is finished and offer to teach him truck driving or computer skills, do I ask him what he intends to do with the baby? how can he guarantee that it won't end up on the streets? Does he even worry about this? ....or do I agree, on my terms, and admit that I secretly relish the arrival of a little Boun Na?

    I'll let you know!

Elephant Camp Generations! (kids and eles, a winning photographic combination on National Elephant Day)

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 01:18:00 GMT

As more and more of the world are coming to realise, March 13th is Thailand's National Elephant Day - when we first celebrated it, back in the day, when we had four elephants, it was hardly even recognised in the local press.

    Yesterday was our 4th Elephant Day here in camp, this time with 26 eles across both camps - Four Seasons have a quiet ceremony, Anantara have a big buffet bash - and the event was so large throughout Thailand it even made BBC World and the Nation rewarded me for a harrowing time talking at the Foreign Correspondent's Club of Thailand by printing a piece on our work in their new Daily Xpress format.

    During my stumbling, bumbling, rambling, rabbit-in-the-headlights talk I must have got some of my message across as he mentioned how important it is to have the wives and kids of mahouts with us - to see the elephant, at this stage at least, as a unit of elephant mahout and family.

    I was thinking about this yesterday as I was looking for shots to share with you - and not only does it make good ele sense, it is great to see the kids so involved!

...Natasha introduced to Nong Dah as the eles await their feast...

...Ja's son listens intently to the Sanskrit sermon...

...as does the human Pleum...

...Oum knows how to pose and doesn't listen quite so intently to the spiritual side...

...Natasha knows no fear when feeding Makam, running the gauntlet with Lamyai and Nam Khong.

Moskva's new mahout is learning elephant commands as her first words - she's got a pretty good 'bon soong' going!

Hmmmm... and then Oum, the Booer Tong family, what can we say, she knows where the camera is!

Some men you just can't reach (our first full reversal)

Sun, 09 Mar 2008 13:41:00 GMT

Life and circumstance have pulled me away from my missive writing table for too long, two weeks gallivanting, an awards ceremony (we won - by the way) and then back to the grindstone, sparks flying.

    So, how to catch up with those of you who follow this? Well, honestly and with the bad news first I think, during my absence we had our first reversal and a definitive end to a story that started so well but, if I look back, had been living in optimism for a few months.

    Ko Barn left us, and he's part of the story, but I'm not too worried about him as he's a long time movie star and some rich producer bought him out of his contract, provided an ele limo and, having expended, will pamper - it is the story of the hitch-hiker in that limo that I am worried about.

    In the same truck Boon Lot also went. Boon Lot, you'll remember, was the elephant we found under Rama IX last September, too tired to be woken by the scream of traffic and the approach of strangers, she's a family elephant and is deeply entwined in the various families we have living with us - owned by Lung Sao, K. Sompong's father and Nong Pleum (human)'s other Grandfather.

    The fly in the ointment was K. Sompong's younger brother who was on the streets with a younger elephant at the time we bought Boon Lot up but refused to come himself; since Lot has been living the good life up here he's been barely surviving on the streets of small provincial towns and, since December (when he turned down another offer to come up - despite having been beered and banana'ed (bananas for his ele) for a night in Bangkok by Anantara - we bought her a night in a small forest nearby) he had been calling his father weekly and asking who was the favourite son? How could a loving father live the good life in the Golden Triangle with one son and leave his youngest to suffer on the streets?

    Well, I know what my Dad would have said, I probably wouldn't be able to type it in a family blog like this, but it would go along the lines of "Foolish boy, get up here and take advantage of the kind offer, look after your wife and raise your child."

    Perhaps that is how Lung Sao did start out but by the last week in February, my second day in Istanbul, the younger son had persuaded the Dad to make a break to support his illegal endeavours - Seang had a day off; I was in awe of the Hagia Sofia and stuffed on olives, cheese and kebabs; Amp was desk ridden and basically hors de combat after her appendectomy - the two old men, with Ko Barn's buy out cash in their pocket, decided to breach their contracts, get drunk and cause a fight, first amongst themselves and then with the other mahouts.

    When my phone rang it was on a stormy Bosphorus, riding a boat with snow on the decks, facing Europe and with my back to Asia for the first time in five years - the irony was not lost.

    The stupid thing is that we are not a prison, had they worked out their contract (or even spoken with me three days before I left when an empty truck went back to Surin having bought our latest rescues - more later or see here or here for instant gratification) with our grace and friendship - we do recognise there are some men you just can't reach - albeit with our disapproval, and a cheque for a contract completed.

    Now, unfortunately for Boon Lot, they've burned their bridges - we know their priorities lie with a ne'er-do-well son and that they are prepared to breach contracts as cowards rather than request as Gentlemen - besides I'm not sure either Lord or Sompong would have them back in camp.

    We always said, from the beginning of the Rescue Rental (and this was an Anantara Rental - the hotel covered her costs and she helped the hotel's mahout training activities - rather than a Foundation Rescue), that the downside was they could always leave, the upside being that by helping one elephant we also helped mahouts and family and hadn't put another elephant in danger of being split early - or, it seems, taken from the wild in Burma and smuggled across - and taken onto the streets.

    So, so long Boon Lot, hope we can meet again, hope you enjoyed six months of good food and easy life, hope those six months have made you stronger, healthier and better prepared to face the hardships of life - we know blood is thicker than water and some blood is thicker than others.

    Easily written, sentences like that, not so easily believed; but in this affair nett good has been done, no other ele has been put in danger and a young ele has had something of a teen-hood and is better prepared to face the world - something that would not have happened had we not been here.

Call me old fashioned....

Sat, 16 Feb 2008 00:43:00 GMT

    Here in Thailand certain local politicians made the news on St Valentine's night for ordering special squads of motel Police to patrol known love nests in order to protect Thai youth from themselves; They are worried that the nasty propaganda of pink cards and fluffy toys has been corrupting the flower of the nation by encouraging urges that ought to be suppressed.

    My amusement at the mother hen nature of Thai politicians was exposed as pure hypocrisy when reading of an eight year-old Thai elephant living in Australia (exported last year in a storm of controversy) who has recently had her pregnancy announced to great fanfare - How could they do this? What were they thinking? I had carefully stood outside the ropes on the debate of should they go, shouldn't they go; I had leaned into the Zoo's corner from time to time on the grounds that the welfare and care they would receive in Taronga Zoo would be guaranteed...

    ...and now this, what a silly thing to let happen.

    Before I flew off the handle, though, I thought I'd think about it a bit and talk to those that know, in fact, being the coward that I am I was going to sit back and watch with interest - this blog is not about polemic or controversy, but no news story has generated so many guest e-mails asking me what I thought so, here we go...

    All the old books I have give 15 as a safe breeding age, the Zoo's own policy gives 11 (looking back to Shana Alexander's book about Circuses and Zoos I remember being shocked at them considering an elephant fully grown by 9 or 10 when I think of them in human years) so eight would seem almost certainly too young.

    I went to talk with K. Lord who said that he'd heard of an eight year old in good condition carrying to term and safely giving birth - one thing we can be sure of is that the Zoo will give young Tong Dee the best care and nutrition money can buy - he also said, interestingly since it seems not even the Zoo can work this out for sure, that Tong Dee is definitely nine years old by now, she was born in Ban Satuk in Buriram (Kam Mool - the Four Seasons elephant's home village) and that she was a healthy baby!

    So, my concerns slightly settled, I had a look at out mothers and our ten year old, Pleum, who would count as fat and well cared for. It is the size I'm worried about - human moral issues aside, taking as read that herd instinct and the Zoo will take care of raising the baby properly - physically the reason we don't encourage young human children to breed as soon as they become fertile are, as I understand them, the stress on an immature growing body of having another growing body within (and potential long term problems for the mother caused by nutrition that should help her grow going to her baby) and the physical difficulties with giving birth to a full size baby from an ungrown body, though this would be less of a problem with eles due to the relative sizes of mother and baby - yes, the baby's big but the mother's usually huge.

    I'll let you decide for yourselves (mainly since I can't make up my mind)...

...stand Pleum next to relatively small Poon Larb, Lynchee's Mum, even though Pleum is a year older than Tong Dee we can assume she's as well fed, definitely smaller but not that much...

...but put her next to our really healthy, well balanced, Mum Makam and she's obviously still a child. I'd like to see a photo of Tong Dee next to an adult elephant, maybe she is full grown at ten?

    In conclusion, according to Lung Lord - who really does know his stuff - it can be safe (if not to be recommended) if Tong Dee is large enough to carry an extra 90kg, well fed and cared for (which we can take as a given) but with no real knowledge on the long term effects on her carrying a baby through her formative years. We can note, though, that this elephant man of elephant men wants to wait at least one more year before breeding Pleum despite her size, care and condition.

    From a strategic point of view I would ask why risk such an already controversial project, one that has been justified and fought for, by not waiting two (or ideally five) more years? Whatever this is it is not best practice, yes the elephants were bought across for breeding and to widen the gene pool in order to prevent extinction but breeding is taking place throughout the range states, there is no emergency on these grounds to produce babies, and the world is watching - the majority wishing well but some waiting for a fall.

    From a personal point of view I wish them well and hope for the best but, and you can call me old fashioned when I say,...

    ....no daughter of mine.
_____________________________________

LOVE is in the air at Taronga Zoo - or at least it was five months ago.

More than fifteen months after arriving under a cloud of controversy from Thailand, Sydney's Asian elephants have conspired to grow their number by one.

An ultrasound image has confirmed that eight-year-old Thong Dee has made history and is now 20 weeks pregnant.

A successful birth, expected sometime in mid-2009, would mark the first captive elephant breeding success in Australasia.

Tests conducted last week revealed a healthy foetus about 10cm long.

Keepers claimed that it was "very active, like its father" the younger male elephant Gung - which in Thai means prawn.

Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Water Phil Koperberg said the pregnancy, which will last 22 months, had always been planned.

The animals were brought to Taronga in 2006 on an epic voyage via the Cocos Keeling Islands and are now housed in a $15 million specialised enclosure.

"From day one, it had always been our intention to have them breed," Zoo director Guy Cooper said.

He disputed claims by Greens MP Lee Rhiannon - a critic of the animals being brought to Australia - who said Thong Dee was underaged and that the pregnancy was a mistake resulting from poor management by the keepers.

Ms Rhiannon also claimed the captive management plan adopted by Taronga Zoo specified that female elephants should be at least 11 years old before becoming pregnant.

But Mr Cooper said tests last year confirmed that the female animals were all of reproductive maturity and ready to breed.

The elephants at Taronga have matured rapidly due to their high standards of diet, exercise and care, he said.

"From the start, the male Gung, 7, began doing what he was supposed to do in an elephant herd, mating with the females," Mr Cooper said.

"Over months, his relationship with them changed from being a playful younger brother to being a desirable young male. It was always our plan to breed Gung with the younger females Thong Dee and Tang Mo.

"In the wild, first-time mothers can lose up to 50 per cent of their calves either during pregnancy or as neo-natal deaths.

"This exciting news is a tremendous success for Taronga's regional Conservation Breeding Program and for the future of our largest living land animals."

Five of the eight elephants brought to Australia - Pornthip, Pak Boon, Tang Mo, Thong Dee and Gung - are living at Taronga Zoo.

The remainder are in Melbourne zoos.

On the loose in Laos? Why not go to ele-land?

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 02:30:00 GMT

Being the jealous sort and knowing the fun involved I ought not be telling you this lest I get bitter at the stories of your ele time; but since the reason I cannot go is that I'm about to jet off for a holiday myself - non-ele based - then I can hardly hold a grudge.

    Last year, you may recall, we went to Hong Sa for a week or so of ele indulgence and Laos style laid back living, this year Elefantasia have decided to make their elephant festival slightly more accessible, putting it in a place that can allegedly be reached by non-4WD transport, safely on a motorbike (without broken limbs) and rumour has it you may not even need to charter a boat and run the gauntlet of Khmer speaking pirates/New York speaking cocktail mixers.

    I am sure this will not diminish the experience one iota but may well annoy the embassy crowd as I'm sure they loved their excuse to turn up in a helicopter, who wouldn't? - of course, it scuppered my application to purchase a helicopter as a business expense, another reason for my bitterness.

    Pap the Thai Vet will be there representing us - Oil's pregnant, Amp's recovering from an appendectomy so I can't even send one of my deserving Assistants - so if you see the man in green please say hello and put him back on the straight and narrow.

    Please do visit, Sebastien and Gilles of Elefantasia do a great job year round working with the Laos elephants and their communities - this is their time to showcase their work.

____________________________________________

Paklai readies for elephant festival

Xayaboury province is getting ready to welcome local and international tourists to the second Elephant Festival, which is scheduled to begin next week in Paklai district.
"I would like to take this opportunity to invite business people, traders, locals and international tourists to join us for the festival," Governor Lien Thikeo said yesterday at a press conference held at the Lao National Tourism Administration in Vientiane .
"You will see exhibitions of local products and many activities involving elephants, which will not disappoint."
The festival will take place from February 15 to 17, according to the official schedule from the Lao National Tourism Administration.
Dr Lien said the provincial authorities and the French-run ElefantAsia had been preparing the event for months, and confirmed the festival would be bigger than last year's, with more elephants and parades.
Competitions between people and elephants, an elephant beauty contest, boat racing and rocket firing would all be part of the festival, organised to create an atmosphere of fun, he added.
About 70 elephants and hundreds of artists and performers will take part in the festival, according to tourism officials.
The Director of the Xayaboury Tourism Administration, Mr Sangviane Sengkannaly, said that the administration had prepared a number of places for accommodation.
The district has 14 guesthouses that can sleep only 300 people so the authorities are arranging for local families to provide a home-stay service for visitors.
He said about 400 families in the town of Paklai had agreed to open their homes to visitors, providing sleeping arrangements for more than 3,000 people.
He expected that more people would offer their homes in the days to come.
Mr Sangviane said that the price of a room in a guesthouse would be from 50,000 to 100,000 kip per night and for a home-stay it would be 25,000 kip to 30,000 kip per person per night.
"We have agreed on a suitable price for accommodation and all householders have promised not to charge more tha n this sum," he said.
He added that guesthouse owners, host families and service providers had been trained in the provision of good service to visitors, and believed they would be impressed with the local hospitality as the people of Paklai were traditionally kind and welcoming. He also stated that people would have enough to eat, because there were plenty of restaurants in the district.
Mr Sangviane estimated that at least 15,000 people would attend the festival, and the authorities had arranged extra accommodation, if needed, in the neighbouring districts of Kaenthao and Sanakham, about 70km from the festival venue, less than two hours' drive away.
The first elephant festival was held in Hongsa district, Xayaboury province by the provincial authorities and the French-run ElefantAsia. There were only 49 elephants joined in the event last year.

Adventure Show

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 02:01:00 GMT

Destination Thailand

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 02:01:00 GMT

News Clip

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 02:01:00 GMT

RUANG LAO CHAOW NEE

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 02:00:00 GMT

UBC Sport Update Program

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 02:00:00 GMT

MORNING TALK

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 01:59:00 GMT

Feature Clip

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 01:57:00 GMT

What is that thing? ...what does it eat? ...and is it on steroids?

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 01:17:00 GMT

Another one for our entomologist friends, this thing landed on my car yesterday - almost broke the suspension.

...funny sticky feet and forward looking eyes it turned to look at me as I approached, I threw a bottle in for some perspective (and to see if I could goad it into attack)...

...Steph the Aussie vet wrestled it to the ground, sustaining minor injuries in the process - I'd have done it but I didn't want to damage the beast - and popped it onto something that looked like it should be its natural territory, at least something to show the camouflage better than back of my truck (to which it had become attached)...

...and once it was sated on Steph's finger I felt I could move in close for a mug shot.

...wouldn't call him an ugly bugger to his face but trust he doesn't read these missives.

Entomologists, any enlightening Latin phrases for me?

PS. Pretty sure it is vegetarian and Steph sustained no injury; that bit was a joke, honest, and Steph has signed an affidavit to that effect (with her remaining good hand).

A good month for the birders....

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 01:08:00 GMT

What's happening here?

    I heard my first night jar calling in the cool, dry morning a couple of weeks ago, forgot to tell you; the egrets have been here for months - have I mentioned them yet?; I saw some Rosy Minivets on the drive, they didn't even get a note in the diary.

    My bosses, of course, up in Anantara Towers will happily note that I must be doing some work at last, no time for the finer bird spotting - only wasters and travellers have time to hang out and watch the roses, right, still waiting on last year's bananas per billable hour breakdown and Lynchee's performance goals for this year - no time to be hanging around in bushes.

    But the birding is going on, I grabbed five minutes with local birders Mick and Dowroong of the Yonok Wetland Project yesterday, here to pick up some guests and take them out to the birding spots around the Mekong and up to the project itself.

    Without my concentrating on it we've managed to keep them fairly busy with the ornthologically minded and some support teaching from our guests, we're seeing more and more spotting scopes and bin's around the hotel just recently - and then (egrets leaving as I write) I note that, of the significant sightings in Thailand for January (as reported by the Bird Conservation Society of Thailand) about 30% for the whole country were from this area and the Yonok discovered sights, many with our guests!

    Now that's worth dragging me away from my work to report (honest boss).
____________________________________

BIRD RECORDS: Rapid roundup, January 2008

Two Chinese Egrets on the sand spit at Laem Phak Bia on 22 January (RFG, PDR), and an amazing 75 at Krabi on 24 January (DT). There were no further sightings of the Great-billed Heron photographed in Laem Son National Park (Ranong) in the first half of January.

One Baer's Pochard along with 29 Ferruginous Pochards on Nong Bong Khai (Chiang Rai) on 23 January (YWP). The Common Shelducks at Ban Pak Thale (Phetchaburi) had risen to four by 31 January (SN). Greylag Goose photographed on Bung Boraphet (Nakhon Sawan ) on 21 January (Chanchai SURNAME?). Comb Duck at Bung Boraphet on 30 January (KE).

Masked Finfoot at Chiang Dao Hill Resort (Chiang Mai) on 24 and 25 January (BW) but not seen thereafter. Three different Water Rails at Nong Samrong (Udon Thani) during 7-16 January (P.

Male Western Marsh Harrier photographed at Nong Lom (Chiang Rai) on 13 January (TS, CW).

Shorebirds in the Inner Gulf included 45 Asian Dowitchers on mudflats off the Samut Sakhon Mangrove Research Station on 20 January (SS); 14 different Spoon-billed Sandpipers during early January, the largest single group at Ban Pak Thale (where still six on 31 January; BCST Survey);15 Nordmann's Greenshanks roosting with 1600 Great Knots at Laem Phak Bia on 23 January (RFG, PDR); 450 Red Knots at Samkut Manirat (Samut Sahon) on 17 January (SN, AJP, PDR). First-winter Black-tailed Gull at the Thachin River Mouth (Samut Sakhon) on 22 January (RFG ,PDR). One male "White-faced Plover" present at Laem Phak Bia from 5 to at least 28 January (many observers).

Four different Long-billed Plovers at Chiang Saen (Chiang Rai) this January (two seen together on 25 and 29 January; YWP). The long-staying River Tern was also present on 26 January (YWP).

A waterbird count at Krabi on 9 January produced a staggering 824 Lesser Crested Terns (DT).

Two nests of Grass Owl have been found at Nong Lom: one with two, roughly one-week old, chicks on 13 January (CW, TS, UK) was still intact on 24 January when surveyed by Thai Raptor Group. TRG then found a second nest with four older chicks which was sadly destroyed by fire set by villagers on 26 January.

Fourteen different Jerdon's Bushchats at six sites along the river between Chiang Saen and Chiang Khong on 30 January (YWP). Long-tailed Thrush on Doi Lang (Chiang Mai) on 17 January (IW) and male Black-breasted Thrush, Doi Ang Khang on 17 January (BL). Aberrant Bush Warbler (first record for the park)and Rufous-tailed Robin behind the newly constructed toilet black on the summit of Khao Khieo, Khao Yai on 8 and 10 January (NL, RP, DW et al

Five Rosy Starlings and two Chestnut-cheeked Starlings at Chumphon on 29 January (CN).

Contributors: Philip Bawden (P, Krairat-Eiam-amphai/ Bung Boraphet Wildlife Research Station (KE), Richard Grimmett (RFG), Thai Raptor Group/Dr. Chaiyan Kasorndorkbua (TRG), Dr. Ubonrat Kiewcham (UK), Banard Lau (BL), Nitthaya Lawrence (NL); Somchai Nimnuan (SN), Chukiat Nualsri (CN), Ralph Parks (RP), Andrew Pierce (AJP) Yonok Wetlands Project (Mick Davies and Dowroong Damlamajak (YWP), Philip Round (PDR), Dr. Taweewat Supindham (TS), Smith Sutibut (SS), Donnapat Tamornsuwan (DT), David Walsh (DW), Boontan Wangsithan (BW), Ingo Waschkies (IW) Chaiwat Wongchai (CW)

(Compiled by Philip Round on behalf of BCST Records Committee)

http://www.bcst.or.th/eng/sighting.htm