Reporter's Notebook: Elephants Heal at Thai "Heaven"

Rampant Abuse

Lilly was given amphetamines to work round-the-clock on illegal logging until she had a physical/nervous breakdown. She was shaking, unable to eat, and convulsing when Lek found her.

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Ivory poachers drugged and chained Boon Khum—a majestic male—to a tree last year, and then they took off his tusks with a chainsaw. It's like cutting someone's tooth off right at the gums—hits all the nerves. A terrible infection developed. The sicker he got, the more aggressive he became. When Lek found him a few months later, she called him a "skeleton walking." That's when she bought him, to heal him.

The smell of infection around Boon Khum is fierce. Lek and a mahout clean out his tusk cavity using traditional Thai medicine; herbs are collected in the jungle, chopped up, and boiled in river water. Water guns shoot the medicine into Boon Khum's hollow, infected tusk cavity.

Owners shot Jokia in the eyes with slingshots if she was "lazy" at work. Eventually, the abuse left her blind in both eyes. She became a terrified, aggressive elephant, which led to further abuse until Lek found and retired her. Jokia seems peaceful now, though she bumps into trees a lot. She is very gentle—fearful of other elephants—but comfortable with Lek and her mahout. She uses her sense of touch and smell to get around, and does pretty well.

None of this led to charges against the animals' owners.

No Legal Protection

There is almost no legal protection for domestic elephants in Thailand. Despite being an endangered species, domestic elephants are considered livestock by law—and there are scant penalties for their abuse. Lek recently filmed an elephant that was set on fire and burned to death by a drunken owner. There were no legal repercussions.

Thais often say elephants helped build this nation. For centuries they were Thailand's tanks, taxis, and bulldozers. As such, a contradiction developed: These beasts of burden became cultural icons. They are symbols of the king's divine right to rule and of good luck; they are also religious icons. None of this protects them from abuse or their current slide toward extinction. The World Conservation Union, based in Switzerland, currently lists the Asian elephant as endangered.

That night Lek makes dinner over an open fire. It's pitch black in the jungle, far from the reach of electricity. Her hut is on stilts—there are no walls, just a roof, with all of us sitting on a mat on the floor.

Suddenly, a 300-pound trunk lands on the floor. The 80-year-old Mae Perm, the oldest elephant in Heaven, had wandered up. Elephants are so quiet, we didn't hear her coming. It was such a magical surprise. Mae Perm was as high as the hut's platform and looked in at us from eye level. She used her trunk like a vacuum; there was a huge sucking sound as she landed her trunk in a rice bowl, then flung her trunk into her mouth, blasting the rice in.

Jumbo Express

From Heaven, I embarked on Lek's "Jumbo Express"—a program bringing free veterinary care to remote elephant camps throughout the northern countryside.

We traveled well past the circuit of roads, hiking and traveling on a bamboo raft that was about eight poles wide and filled me with terror every time I pulled out my camera. Generally, we just distributed de-worming medicine to elephants at two remote camps.

Four days of hiking and rafting left me exhausted. But the moment we rafted back to a small village within reach of electricity and phone lines, Lek got word that a newly orphaned elephant needed sanctuary. Baby elephants are fragile—we set out right then and there on a seven-hour drive into a remote part of northeastern Thailand.

We arrived at midnight to find a terrified one-year-old elephant, screaming with grief and fear. He had never before been out of sight of his mom and was inconsolable. His owners are from the Karen hill tribe. The next morning we built bamboo racks around a pickup truck's open bed, piled it with hay, covered it with leaves, and set off. Lek named the new baby "Hope."

So now I lend a hand babysitting two baby elephants in between film projects. It's outrageously cool to be hanging out with these itty-bitty elephants and getting such an intimate window into their world.

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