“This woman, who slept with her elephant at night, woke up shocked. Then, something unbelievable happened. Elephants are the largest land animals and one of the most majestic creatures on the planet, but sadly, they are also one of the most endangered species, hunted for the ivory that their tusks are made out of. There are less than 3,000 specimens left in the wild. That’s why people like Sangduin Leg Chilet are trying their very best to save and help these amazing animals by rescuing them and rehabilitating them so that hopefully one day they can be reintroduced to the wild.
Lek is the founder of the Elephant Nature Park, which is situated in Chiang Mai in Thailand. She first put up the sanctuary back in 1996 and has devoted her life to rescuing and helping as many elephants as she can. Since the sanctuary first opened, she has rescued over 200 of these incredible beasts and rehabilitated them back to health. ‘Many of them arrive here like a zombie. Some of them arrive here and they don’t know they are elephants. They stand still; they walk in a circle,’ Lek said in an interview about her work in rescuing the elephants.
Lek first got into helping these endangered animals when she was a young woman. She had been walking through the jungle close to her home one day when she suddenly heard an incredibly pained and heartbreaking sound. She followed the noise, curious as to what it could be, until she stumbled upon a sight that broke her heart. In front of her was an elephant with chains around its ankles and neck, being forced to haul logs through the jungle. Not only was the logging operation illegal itself, as the person was deforesting a protected area, but the treatment of the elephant was incredibly cruel. From that moment on, Lek vowed to herself that she would help these innocent creatures in any way that she could.
The elephants that she rescues usually arrive at the sanctuary with some kind of severe psychological trauma due to how terribly they have been treated in their life so far. Many of them are malnourished and have physical ailments, ranging from landmine wounds (which have been known to take part of the animal’s legs) to broken hips and legs caused by the illegal logging industry. Not only are the elephants used for work, though, but they are sadly still used as entertainment in some places as well, with many of the creatures coming to Lek’s sanctuary partially or completely blind from having slingshots aimed at their eyes or being in the bright lights of a circus.
‘We have to first heal them. We have to heal them with love,’ Lek explained. ‘We have to let nature rehabilitate them. We have to make them feel that this is a safe place for them. Trust is the first thing that we have to go and do in order to make the elephants feel safe and relaxed.’ One of the rules of the sanctuary is that there are no tricks, rides, or elephant-made paintings done at the sanctuary. Unlike other organizations, which will sometimes use these tactics to try and generate a bit of income from tourists to keep their sanctuaries going, Lek instead invites tourists to feed, bathe, and walk side by side with the world’s largest land animal.
‘If we don’t change our attitude from this time, we can’t expect the next generation to learn and to stay peaceful with other beings on this planet,’ Lek said. Lek’s affection for all of the elephants that she has saved, and her ability to connect with them, has earned her the title of Thailand’s Elephant Whisperer. ‘I never think that an elephant is an animal. I think they are a person. So that is why when I talk to them, I treat them like my family,’ said Lek. ‘We understand each other, even if we speak a different language, but we understand each other.’
And there is always an elephant by her side, whether that be with its long trunk wrapped around Lek’s petite figure or sleeping by her side at night. Like with most sanctuaries, Lek’s main goal is to rehabilitate the elephants that she rescues until they are deemed healthy and strong enough to survive on their own in the wild. Lek hopes that by doing this, she can increase the number of wild elephants that roam the jungles of Thailand and its neighboring countries. ‘When one day they start rolling in the mud, they start to enjoy trumpeting, swimming in the river, and that is the day I have a tear. I have a tear of joy,’ she said in an interview.
However, like with lots of rescued animals, not all of them are able to be released back to the wild. This could be because of their past trauma, any life-altering injuries they have sustained, or simply because they were so young when they were rescued that they don’t know how to survive in the wild by themselves. But any that aren’t able to be released are more than welcome to stay at the sanctuary, where Lek looks after them as if they were her own children. As a matter of fact, a lot of elephants that get brought to a sanctuary are very young. This is because loggers often find it easier to separate the babies from their mothers and raise them into becoming the work animals that they want. Therefore, when Lek receives baby elephants, she has a very special way of helping them feel safe at the sanctuary.
Instead of leaving them alone at night to deal with the scary new environment that many of the young animals have found themselves in, Lek will happily grab a blanket and a pillow and settle down on the floor to sleep next to the baby elephants. By doing this, she provides comfort to the creatures, which they desperately need. However, she isn’t alone when she does this, as her husband often stays with her to make sure that she is safe throughout the night as well. One night, Lek settled down to sleep with the newest arrival to the sanctuary, a baby elephant whom she named Fifi.
But as the woman settled down to go to sleep, she was suddenly surprised, as Fifi walked over to her to try and cuddle up next to her. Smiling at the situation, Lek simply got up from her makeshift bed and encouraged the baby to lie down next to her. However, the next day when Lek woke up, she was shocked to see what had happened a few feet away. Her husband had set up his own makeshift bed to get some sleep, but it was who he was sharing his bed with that truly shocked Lek. Lying right next to her husband was Fifi.
Apparently, the young elephant had decided that she preferred to sleep next to the man for the night, feeling safer in his presence. This had never happened before, and Lek didn’t know what to make of it. Finding the situation so adorable, she decided to take a picture on her phone of her husband and the elephant cuddling with one another. The woman even took a video of the elephant resting its head on some of Lek’s husband’s pillows. Once they were both comfortable, Lek’s husband pulled the blanket over the both of them and happily got back to sleep.
Lek was really moved by the interaction between the two species. It seemed that she was not the only parental figure in the place. In the end, after the first initial night, something unbelievable started to happen. Fifi would run over to Lek’s husband any time that he was around. As well as that, the young elephant would sleep with nobody else except him. Lek was bewildered at the strange turn of events but was happy that the young elephant had found comfort in someone.
Gradually, Fifi grew out of her attachment to Lek’s husband as she got older. However, she would still happily greet him from time to time when he popped by to say hello. It’s thanks to people like Lek and her husband, though, that amazing animals like these are given a fighting chance to survive. If you want to know more, you can head on over to the Elephant Nature Park website to see how you could help these beautiful beasts. What an incredible story!
