Elephant Conservation Center

I know it’s a bit of a cliché, but after last week I am fascinated with elephants.  Sebastian, Salika, Buon Phon and the mahouts at the Elephant Conservation Center in Sayaboury, Laos were great.  For those of you not familiar with the term, a mahout is an elephant “handler” or “owner” or “caretaker” depending on whom you ask.  We had the opportunity to spend a couple of days with the mahouts and experience their daily life here in Lane Xang or “Valley of the Elephants” – the old name for the current Lao P.D.R. We liked the idea of going to the elephants in nature, rather than bringing them to the city as some sort of tourist money-maker and that decision sure paid off.  I felt good paying the tab at the end of the visit.

First some background on the center.  The Asian Elephant is currently threatened as the population in most of SE Asia continues to shrink.  This center and others like it are trying to change this trend by encouraging the birth of more baby elephants.  The Sayaboury Center currently has 6 adult females (one of them is 60 years old!) and 3 baby elephants, which is a real success story especially when you consider that the gestation period for an elephant is 2 years.  These are “working elephants” that are taking a break to have a baby. In Lao that means they were used in the logging industry as a sort of living, self-loading skidder and truck.  But what if you logging truck got pregnant and you couldn’t use it for two years?  How would you feed your family?  You just wouldn’t let that happen, and that was a big part of the problem here.  This is where www.Elefantasia.org steps in and compensates the mahout for the lost time of their elephant; not only with a tractor to replace it for the time the elephant is at the center, but also an opportunity to work at the center during the pregnancy.  This is a good idea that seems to work.

Each morning we had a tasty “petit dejeuner” and were off to collect the elephants that sleep in a different part of the 100 hectare reserve each night.  They require around 250 kilos of my-bong and my-pai (bamboo), as well as other forest vegetation, and have to be moved often to maintain the habitat.   The hike out in the morning was enhanced by the mahout’s lessons on finding food and surviving in the Lao mountains which they really seem to pride themselves on knowing.  After getting a chance to ride the elephants back to the lake, its bath time!  Amazing to see how much they enjoy themselves as they spray water to cool off and begin to consume some of the 50 or so liters of water that they require daily.  Then some time is spent training with the elephants, learning traditional commands and caretaking.  We also had great discussions on the history of the elephant and their role in a diversity of subjects.  The rest of the day you had the opportunity to help out at the veterinary clinic, learn how to cook tasty Lao food or just enjoy yourself around the place.

 We really enjoyed ourselves and hope to visit again!