Elephants Never Forget

Miracles do happen and our six-months of waiting has finally come to pass!

The release of two elephants back to the forest on Earth Day is already something to celebrate.  But the planning for this wonderful achievement this week has been ushered in by something even more special than we could have hoped for.

We are thrilled to announce to the world on this Earth Day the birth of a baby elephant to the Elephant Reintroduction Foundation in the Sublangka wildlife sanctuary!

This is a world first. To the best of our knowledge, it’s the first time an elephant has been born in restored wild forest habitat from previously captive elephant parents who have been reintroduced to the wild.  And, it is the first birth in the ten years of the Elephant Reintroduction Foundation’s work! Read more…

Despite the serious threats to elephants, there is some hopeful news too.

Here’s a positive solution and good model for how Asian elephants can be saved.   Check out our latest video clip that shows how life is for elephants when they’re free in the forest.

These are some of the elephants who were once captive and have been released back to the wild in Thailand by the Elephant Reintroduction Foundation.  No mahouts, no chains, no tourists – just elephants roaming free in vast protected  forest habitat.   You can see their natural behaviours, social communication, mud-bathing, foraging and playing – elephants really being elephants.   It’s a pleasure to see them this way – just the way elephants ought to be.

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These are troubled times in the land of elephants.  Back in early January, the Thai and international press reported on the alarming and tragic poaching of wild elephants from the Kaeng Krachan National Park in west Thailand, the country’s largest national park, which borders Myanmar. What has evolved since is confusion, contradiction, misinformation, the arrests of poachers and wildlife officers, the investigations of elephant camps around the country including two internationally renowned sanctuaries, the confiscation of twenty-six elephants, and the recent news that one of those confiscated elephants has died.

 This isolated incident may seem small when compared to the increasing number of elephants and other wildlife being massacred worldwide.  An insatiable demand for ivory in Asia has led to an unprecedented surge of elephant poaching throughout Africa.  And while we hope that at least some endangered Asian elephants, the females and tusk-less males, might be spared from the hunt for ivory, new reports show different.  For it’s not only ivory that has value in the black market.  Elephant meat and baby elephants are also on the poachers’ list.  No wild elephant is safe.  Not even in the protected national parks as is this recent case in Thailand.

Elephants are an important animal in Thailand, traditionally, spiritually and economically.  They are a national icon and, for better or worse, play a significant role in the tourism industry.  It  is for this very reason that the business of elephants ranks high in the national psyche and why the present controversy has had unsettling reverberations throughout the country.  The issues surrounding elephants in Thailand are complex and with so many different stakeholders pitted against each other it is very difficult to get straight answers.  Unfortunately the business of elephants is deeply mired in politics, legal loopholes, and profiteering. Read more…

Last week we filmed the funeral ceremony of Pang Somjai, a 65-year old female elephant who peacefully died of old age in the forest on February 26, 2012.

Pang Somjai was a former tourist elephant from Surin province who came to live at the Doi Phamuang sanctuary national forest as part of the Elephant Reintroduction Foundation’s program to reintroduce captive elephants to wild forest habitat.  This protected area is over 72,000 hectares (178,000 acres) and is home to twenty-eight released elephants.  Pang Somjai joined the program in 2008 and spent the last three and a half years of her life as a free-roaming elephant living with the other released elephants in the forest. Read more…

The elephants released by the Elephant Reintroduction Foundation roam freely in over 20,000 hectares (52,000 acres) of natural forest in the Sublangka wildlife sanctuary. You would think that looking for an elephant would be easy when considering their size, but one of our biggest challenges was actually finding them. Elephants are perfectly camouflaged in the forest environment, and surprisingly they move quickly and quietly. They’re preoccupied with eating because not only do Asian elephants have to eat 300 kg/day, they are a keystone species and essential for healthy forests in Asia.  Read more…

Hi Friends, here’s a story I’ve written for the online magazine Life As A Human about our elephant work here in Thailand.  Please check it out!

Elephants used in city street-begging in Thailand is a controversial activity where both the elephants and the mahouts are victims.  Our research into this issue, why it happens and what can be done about it, led us to the hideout camp of some mahouts on the outskirts of Bangkok.   Here we met a group of men and their families who travel to the city with their elephants from small rural villages in Surin province.  They have been earning money with their elephants in the city streets for several years.  After a few visits we gained their trust. Read more…

This is Wox and Nong-Mai, two of the main characters for our feature film Elephants Never Forget.  They’re also what has led us to make the short documentary “Return to the Forest” for the  Elephant Reintroduction Foundation (ERF), a unique non-profit organization in Thailand with the mission to realize the vision of HM Queen Sirikit to reintroduce captive elephants into the wild.  As Zo and I start the editing for Return to the Forest, I’m reminded of how our elephant journey began.  It was two years ago when we began filming in Thailand to explore the complexity and diversity of the human-elephant relationship.  We eventually found ourselves embedded in the controversial world of the street mahouts, which is where we met Wox and his family.  Over months of filming, we followed their activities from the city streets back to their home villages in rural Thailand, documenting this way of life for both elephants and mahouts – the hardships they face, and what their alternatives may be.  In a land where elephants are loved and revered, why does this activity continue to occur?  Here’s a clip from some our early footage with Wox and his elephant.  Elephants Never Forget- A Young Mahout

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Amidst the grunting, sweating and toil of climbing up the mountain trail with backpacks full of cameras and tripods, the TV theme song from “Gilligan’s Island” starts running through my head.  It’s not because we’re anywhere near a boat, or water.  It’s because I’m beginning to feel like we’re on the proverbial “three-hour tour”.  What was supposed to be a short hike up the mountain in pursuit of a great view shot has turned into a major expedition, due to the steepness of the trail, weight of the gear, and the heat.  It could also be because we’re really tired.  We’re nearing the end of our elephant filming days for the Elephant Reintroduction Foundation, and for certain the best of the jungle has been left for last. Read more…

Watching Nong-Mai playing in the pond at the forest’s edge in the Sublangka sanctuary, it’s hard to believe that we first met her just over a year ago when she was a street begging elephant on the outskirts of Bangkok.   At that time she was owned by Wox, a young mahout, and his family from a small village in Surin.  She spent her time either street-begging with Wox, or tied up in a rice field in his village.    Flash-forward to the day I learned that she was acquired by the Elephant Reintroduction Foundation and brought to the Sublangka sanctuary, to live the life of a free elephant in the forest.  I was so happy to hear this, and I also wondered if I would see her again.   And now here we are, and I’m watching her play with her new best friend Pompam, a 26-year old female who I’m told just loves young elephants.  In fact, Pompam and Nong-Mai are inseparable.   As a seven-year-old,  Nong-Mai is the youngest elephant here at the sanctuary.  Pompam apparently has the habit of assuming the role of surrogate mom with other younger elephants, and when Nong-Mai arrived they instantly bonded.  Read more…