A new baby was born at the park yesterday. Have a look at this video and check out the excitement of the aunties. This is the third baby born here in the last few months – they’re absolutely beside themselves!!
Try having one of these very close to your own…
Good morning fellow NERDS. It’s been raining here so I’ve been reading through this wonderful page full of fabulous factoids. I decided that I couldn’t possibly keep them to my self any longer, as they’re too interesting not to share. So here they are – enjoy your Sunday reading!
Luckily, elephants are vegetarians. One of the Park residents, Pom, giving an ele a treat.
My partner and I are off to North Thailand in three weeks to work with elephants. Specifically the ones at Elephant Nature Park, Chiang Mai, North Thailand. Large, grey proboscis-laden pachyderms banana-hoovers abound there, as well as many rescued dogs, cats, buffalo, cows, chickens and assorted other beasties. They’ve had 2 baby elephants since I was there last year – Navann and Dok Mai. Will I be able to resist hanging around them like a tween at a Bieber concert? Probably not. Will I be able to stop myself from trying to sneak one home in my luggage? Well, that would be a yes, because we only have a 30kg luggage allowance, and I’m pretty sure even a baby banana-hoover weights more than 30kg. Will I be able to avoid snakes, spiders and leech attacks? That remains to be seen. Last time I was in Thailand, it wasn’t out in the jungle I came close to having a snake-related cardiac arrest, it was in a town where I was innocently waiting to cross the road and one fell out of the power lines beside me! Very funny God! Read that story here. Read about the Giant Killer-Leech Attack here.
And so, the preparation begins: Continue reading
Balloons – not so cute once they’ve landed.
I feel very strongly about this matter, so I decided to put a post up about it. When you buy balloons and let go of them, they float off into the sky and look ever so pretty. But eventually they will pop or deflate and land somewhere out of your sight. Then it’s very possible that an animal or bird will come along and try to eat it, or get tangled up in it. And your lovely little momentary thrill will torture this animal or bird to death.
Please use your awareness a little more and refuse to buy balloons. And pass this around, because it’s something people just don’t think about. And it’s time more people did. Thank you, on behalf of the animals of the world.
Produced in 2012, this is a documentary that features Lek Chailert, founder of Elephant Nature Park, and covers a wide range of the situations and issues of the Asian elephant today.
The reality is that the Asian elephant is becoming extinct. If we don’t all come to the realization that in little or big ways we can help the ones that are left, our grandchildren or their children will have to visit museums to gasp at an animal that until recently walked this earth.
What will they think of us, their recent ancestors, the ones that allowed the unethical treatment of elephants to continue, and allowed the extinction of them to occur? I, for one, don’t want to find out the answer to that question…
Chang Yim – young male elephant and all around ratbag. Elephant Nature Park, Chiang Mai, Thailand.
Grant Hayter-Menzies is an author of several books and is about to write one about Elephant Nature Park and Lek, the founder of the park. I’m rapt about this because both the Park and Lek are well worth reading about! Here is a piece he wrote about a childhood experience that haunts him to this day. Be warned – you will probably cry. I did.
Little humans with buckets swarming at the Drive In Ele Wash. Elephant Nature Park, Chiang Mai, North Thailand.
I read this heart-rending post on the blog of a young New Zealand woman. Please read it and other posts on there, and share it around. It’s my wish that every tourist in the world refuses to attend elephant shows and riding parks and makes much more informed and ethical choices in the future. People like this young lady are making it happen.
Thank you.
One giant step for pachyderm, half a dozen steps for mankind.
C’mon now, is this not a thing of beauty?
If you want to know more about the critters above and more with a bit of humour thrown in, these videos by The Bug Chicks. I especially like the dragonfly one.
Bugs are cool! Yep, even slugs. Nature’s insect designs are mind-bogglingly clever. And even though I don’t particularly want them around my home, I admit to having a particular respect for the design of cockroaches. Nature’s tanks!
I am, however, quite grateful that bugs aren’t an awful lot bigger than they are. Can you imagine having to run and hide from the 10 foot-long fly coming towards you? Or having to carry a baseball bat to swat mosquitos off at a barbeque?
Have a wander around their site while you’re there. There’s all sorts of interesting stuff on it. Enjoy!!
Nature’s tanks. Respect!!
I had to share this with you. It was just posted by saveelephant.org (Elephant Nature Park). A tour by blind students from Korea entitled ‘Touching an Elephant’. So very poignant…
Read their post here
A blind boy feels Faa Mai. Just look at the patience on her face…
“A human being is a part of the whole universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a prison, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
— Albert Einstein
“Our task must be to free ourselves from this by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” Albert Einstein.
Elephants strolling by at Elephant Nature Park
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