Help for elephants in distress

The Elephant Nature Park in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand is a retreat for elephants with a wide variety of abusive backgrounds. After a life as a chained temple elephant, tree trunk mover or tourist entertainer, these animals are lucky enough to spend their twilight years in a rescue and rehabilitation center.

Animal rights activists have long criticized the husbandry conditions of many Thai elephants, such as these show animals at a commercial elephant park in Chiang Mai province. Sales to such facilities are preceded by forcible taming of the young animals, after which they must perform daily for tourists.

In the Elephant Nature Park, the animals also have contact with tourists, but here entrance fees finance a life without coercion, mistreatment or drug abuse. This female elephant named Lily was addicted to drugs after being fed amphetamines for a long time, in order to be able to work double shifts in the timber industry. Now she enjoys her freedom.

Humans have made powerful animals docile since time immemorial, as seen here in the logging of Myanmar's rainforest. However, stricter regulation of timber exports in Myanmar has left many former working elephants unemployed. Many owners then sell their animals to commercial elephant parks in Thailand.

Many elephants in Thailand live a monotonous life chained in temple compounds. Only on religious holidays such as the Buddhist New Year festival, Songkran, are they elaborately painted for the ceremonies.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Save Elephant Foundation organized the return of many animals from commercial elephant parks to their home provinces. Due to the lack of income from tourism, owners could no longer afford the high upkeep for the animals. Some traveled as far as 150 kilometers (93 miles) to their destination.

The Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage, both a breeding and conservation facility for wild Asian elephants in Sri Lanka, is home to the largest captive elephant herd in the world. Currently, 71 elephants live here.

Africa also has several sanctuaries for elephants in need. Every calf at the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust Elephant Orphanage in Nairobi, Kenya has a tragic story: orphaned by poachers, drought or by conflicts with humans who are encroaching further and further into the few remaining once-natural areas.

Elephants have a particularly strong bond with their mother. Losing the cow elephant that raises them is all the more dramatic, because the young animals depend on her for years in the wild. That's why the elephants remain in the nursery for about three years, where they are fed every three hours and are each housed with a personal keeper.

This elephant calf in an orphanage in Zambia has also found a mother substitute in its keeper. No one but the personal keeper is allowed to come into contact with the animals, so that they don't become too accustomed to people. The animals spend most of their time outside the station learning to adapt to life in the wild.

In Kenya's Reteti Elephant Sanctuary, the elephant orphan Kone learns to fend for himself in the surrounding steppe thicket on walks with animal keepers. At around 4 years of age, the animal will be able to leave the facility and live independently. According to estimates, there are still around 400,000 African elephants living in the wild, and only around 50,000 in Asia.