The Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation

Plai Tawan is with us! It took a great many donations from Anantara guests as well as a lot of work by Minor International's flying squad of lawyers but, after a month or so living in Surin preparing for the journey, the little fella is with us.

It had been hoped that, having been responsible for the injury, his owner would donate him to the Thai Elephant Conservation Centre. However the owner decided that a limping elephant would be a boon for his begging business and let us know he had decided to take him out onto the streets again.

We had to buy.

He is putting on weight and is fully mobile, though he cannot yet bear to be parted from his adoptive big sister, Pang Kam Sao - he had had no stability in his short life and has latched on to her he is even trying to suckle from the seven year old. She's amazingly patient and even though we had to keep her on a pretty short rein for the first few days of his life here she seems to have accepted her side of the bond, now they're even settled into a small exercise routine for his leg.

We are pleased that he now has time to grow up as part of a human/elephant herd.

Our best chiropractic advice is that it is probably too late to do anything great for his injuries but we'll keep monitoring the situation and are looking for ways to let him suckle - Pang Kam Sao is amazingly patient but he's getting frustrated with the lack of results - even though he now drinks milk with his trunk and is on a course of calcium, the psychological benefits of suckling are obvious in his eyes when he's leaning on his 'sister' with his trunk in the air.

We have learned of an injured two year old male elephant in a hospital in Surin, he is apparently getting the best medical care but has a spinal or leg injury and may never be able to walk properly again. It seems he was hit by a car and the owner is trying to find a way to look after him through the insurance of the car driver - but given the elephant was on the street (probably illegally) this seems unlikely.

His current owner has many debts and cannot affordto keep an elephant that cannot work, or even really pay for medical care.

I aim to visit this elephant and get the full details within the next few weeks, the owner wants 255,000 baht for him and if it proves that he can travel or it will be to his benefit to come and live with us I would like to try and buy him. At the moment he seems to be well looked after and I would only consider buying him if I felt we could offer an improvement in conditions and appropriate veterinary care as time moves on.

Apologies for the quality of the photographs, his current owner sent them through to us, but they are enough to see that he can stand under his own steam, cause for hope, and to see that they are massaging his hind quarters (the black stain will be deep heat) a proof of some treatment.

Plai Tawan was our learning elephant, rather cruelly since he was number two and is now a large and growing tusker - having been through the terrible twos and is currently a well behaved three year old - I often refer to him as the rescue that shouldn't have happened.

About a year after we bought Tawan his ex-owner came to me with two more baby elephants, bought withthe money we gave for our little injured tusker and tried to persuade me to 'rescue' them too.

I offered them a home, food and rent which they turned down and so I had to let them go.

In that moment the Rescue Rental concept was born; I realised that, as a direct result of our actions in buying Tawan, two more baby elephants were split early from their mothers and taken onto the streets - unless we are very, very careful I believe that every time we buy an elephant, give money to a street mahout who wants to continue mahouting, another elephant somewhere else will be put in danger.

Still, it is hard to have regrets when faced with an ele like Tawan, but we learned from our mistakes and try to ensure our future actions don't have unforseen reprocussions.