Life in an elephant sanctuary

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a… snorkel?

Did you know that elephants are amazing swimmers and use their trunk as a snorkel? They can also hold their breath underwater just like we can. On Sunday, I visited two elephant sanctuaries, Phuket Elephant Nature Reserve and Phuket Elephant Sanctuary. Both are ethical sanctuaries that take in older elephants to “retire” after many years of working in riding camps, the logging industry, or elephant shows. Many of these elephants come from situations where they work long hours with improper nutrition and veterinary care. At some of these places, they are also treated poorly with excessive use of bullhooks or other fear-based tactics to control the elephants. So it’s wonderful to see the elephants in these sanctuaries where they can live out their life in peace and don’t have to do hard labor or entertain tourists all day. They have the freedom to make their own choices.

Note: Not all “sanctuaries” are ethical. In fact, there seems to be a spectrum from very ethical all the way to extremely unethical. Some places are disguised as sanctuaries, but still use the elephants as commodities to entertain tourists, while providing poor living conditions and inadequate care. At theses places, the owners are very wealthy and only care about making money from their “sanctuary” business. So if you ever come to Thailand or southeast Asia to see elephants, it’s important to do some thorough research to find a truly ethical sanctuary.

On Monday, I started a weeklong veterinary volunteer position with the Southern Thailand Elephant Foundation (STEF). I am staying in dorm-style accommodations on-site where they have their elephant hospital. The foundation is not associated with the Thai government, it is fully funded by donors from Europe. They provide free veterinary care to the elephants in the area, without judgement. Meaning, they will medically treat any elephant regardless of what the owner is using the elephant for or what the living conditions are. Because, at the end of the day, it’s all about the elephants, and anything that can be done to improve the welfare of an elephant is meaningful.

There are currently no in-patients here at the hospital (the cases ebb and flow just like any hospital), so we’ve been going out on the mobile unit everyday and treating elephants in the field. Yesterday, we went to three elephant riding camps, where tourists can pay to ride the elephants. It is something I personally do not think is ethical, but from what I saw yesterday, the demand is definitely there from tourists around the world. Either they don’t understand what elephant riding means for the welfare of the elephant or they have a different moral view on elephants, or even animals in general.

Most of our cases involved external parasites. It’s interesting how so many things that are found in cats and dogs (and sometimes even humans!) are also found in elephants. I love comparative physiology (or I guess this would be comparative parasitology) and am always amazed how similar we are to animals and how similar animals are to each other. When examining the elephants, we saw lice, gadfly, and ear mite infestations. Most of these ectoparasites (as well as endoparasites) are treated with an intramuscular injection of ivermectin. Those of us in the veterinary field know ivermectin well, but others may know it from being (falsely) advertised as a treatment for Covid. In elephants, ivermectin is also used as a preventative (usually every 3-6 months) in cases where there are high parasite loads in the environment to prevent elephants from getting repeat infections.

Ear infection

Gadfly

Eye ulcer

Ivermectin injection

At the our final stop, we did a recheck on an elephant with an eye ulcer, which is a defect in the outer layer of the cornea. Just like cats and dogs, most eye ulcers in elephants are from some sort of trauma. Usually the eye gets scraped from walking through tall brush or from eye-level tree branches. It can also happen when they are eating, as they can scratch their eye from swinging large, fibrous leaves around with their trunk and smacking them on trees to clean them before eating. After the initial scratch, the eye becomes irritated so they will rub it, which often makes it worse. In cats and dogs, we can place an e-collar to prevent rubbing. Do you think we can put an e-collar on an elephant?! I mean, it would obviously be super cute, but an elephant trunk has ~40,000 individual muscles and is strong enough to uproot a large tree, so I’m going to go with… probably not.