Elephant manifesto and other matters...

Wildlife Friends of Thailand is a safe haven for abused wild animals. In Thailand (but not only, to be fair), gibbons, macaques and others serve as photo props for tourists who are unaware that, by asking for or accepting that service, they are seriously stressing and endangering the animals. I will tell you about the primates in a future update but for now, please take a moment to read the following manifesto:

ELEPHANT MANIFESTO: SAY NO TO STREET-BEGGING ELEPHANTS!!!

By giving money to mahouts (elephant handlers) tourists are contributing to elephant abuse:

·         to perform, the elephant has to be 'broken' using the cruel Pahjaan process – the elephant is starved, burnt, stabbed and systematically tortured to make it obey humans.

·         elephant obedience is based on FEAR and PAIN. If commands are disobeyed, the elephant is beaten. If tricks to entertain tourists are not learnt, the elephant is beaten.

·         The elephant is often starved to keep it looking small and 'cute' for tourists, so it is hungry for tourists' food.

·         Making elephants perform on dirty, unhealthy streets is illegal to do and causes road traffic accidents. Tourists can now also be fined for supporting street-begging elephants.

DON'T SUPPORT ANIMAL ABUSE

DON'T PAY TO FEED A STREET ELEPHANT

The mahouts are NOT poor people (this is a myth)- they earn the Thai equivalent of a small fortune every night from exploiting elephants and tourists who are unaware of the cruelty involved. By feeding it, you are not helping the owner's elephant, just its owners bank balance.

A handful of elephants were lucky to be 'saved' by WFFT and will finish their life safe and secure from the cruelty of the mahouts. For obvious reasons, it is very difficult to get the mahouts to hand over their elephants. As a result, the one and only way to stop this abuse is to not support it. If there is no more demand, hopefully the abuse will stop.

PASS THE WORD!!!!!!!!

OK. Enough gloom.....

Days have been flying by, I have been so busy!

I was on bear duty (more on that later), nocturnal duty again, and happily back to primates yesterday and today....

Yesterday, one of the things I did was to clean the hanging baskets we use to put their food in: a menial task indeed and a neverending one as the baskets will be needing to be cleaned again in a day or two. But what I really enjoyed about it was the interaction with the primates. Coming up to their enclosure and taking the time to scrub the basket meant 'risking' having them come up to us and grab us (I've already had my hair grabbed twice;-). It was great fun though, trying to outsmart them and I did succeed a few times when they realized that I wasn't scared of them....and staring them straight in the eyes. They are very funny and very, very clever.  Imagine this: there are two baby macaques in this one enclosure. They actually figured out that a. they are in a closed enclosure b. if they want to get out, they have to open something and c. and this is the amazing part: they have figured out that it is a lock that is keeping them in (mostly because they see the staff locking and unlocking the lock several times a day) and that by removing the lock, they could then get out. I, for one, find that amazing because it means to me that they understand the consequences of doing certain things such as removing a lock to be free.

Included is a photo of some of the enclosures here. Bear in mind that most if not all of these primates have come from situations where they were kept in very tiny cages and some of them did not even know how to swing until they arrived at WFFT, so it's good stuff indeed.

And to conclude on a note of zenitude, this is a photo of a reclining buddha a short way up the road. It is absolutely massive and very beautiful and is set in lovely and calm surroundings of grass and trees.

Tomorrow, I'm due to go on an elephant safari...will tell you all about it in a few days.

Cheers

 Large enclosures with the feeding baskets on the outside

 Elephant "June" th eoldest elephant at WFFT, she's about 60. You can see the wounds she has on her backside. She is now safe from all of that and leading a quiet life much loved by all the volunteers.

 That's me standing in front of the Buddha.