Mae Khan Mai

The ECC owns 5 elephants for breeding purposes: 1 male and 4 females. Every elephant has its own personality and history; but because I’ve been working with Mae Khan Mai (pronounced “Mekamai”) since I got here I want to share her story first. “Golden Silk” was purchased about a month ago from a logging camp; the center was looking for a young female elephant for months now however it was a matter of getting the right elephant… The one who needed us the most.

She was in pretty bad condition: overworked, skinny, lethargic, full of cutaneous parasites, had bloody feces and most importantly, afraid of people. We knew instantly we HAD to take her with us. We made an offer but within hours an elephant camp exceeded us (in Laos, an elephant costs around US$20,000 in case you were wondering). The possibility of this poor elephant being purchased by an elephant camp was terrifying! The uncertainty of what would happen to her… a lot crossed our minds: Would she get appropriate veterinary care? Would they overwork her with elephant treks?... Would they hurt her?! There are just a hand-full of elephant camps that DO care about elephants, normally its just business.

Mae Khan Mai waiting happily for her treatment while eating corn

In the end, the mahout realized that the elephant would be better off with us (yes, mission accomplished!). Now the real work starts: 

Getting a Heart Rate

Mae Khan Mai was brought to the ECC; I treated the bloody feces with what we had (penstrep, cimetidine and fluids) and the cutaneous parasites with ivermectin, which left a few skin abscesses behind. For me the hardest part is that she is scared to death of everything, I seriously think she was abused at the logging camp…And on top of that, because I jabbed her, she is now scared of me too and that just breaks my heart. Some of the behaviors that I've noticed are: she pees as soon as she sees me, she makes stress sounds and sometimes she will put her trunk in her mouth when she is in pain (yes, just like a baby!). This obviously devastates me…I have no idea what to do about it or how to comfort her. Elephants don’t seek human contact like pets do. I feel such helplessness. I am always rewarding her with her favorite treat (sugar cane!) but elephants never forget, especially the veterinarian.

I am trying to find information about retraining and rehabilitating abused elephants; I feel I need to do something about this, I wish to heal her, and not just medically speaking. Golden Silk was assigned a new mahout when she got here too so I will give her time to adapt to him as well.

It is so easy to fall under her spell because she is such a sweetheart; I have never felt in danger or threatened by her...and I have had time to bond with her: she likes to be fed directly into her mouth (as im doing in the picture below), she doesn't like her trunk to be hugged or be bathed with a hose. She also walks very slowly, she likes banana trees (but not the leaves) and her eyes tell me everything I need to know: she wants to be saved. And that is exactly what I am going to do.

Karla Nova