An overview of our Rescues and other Projects
All the rescues and projects below are set out in chronological order and the reports were written at the time of the rescue - times change, babies grow up so for day to day stories of the adventures of our babies please check John's Rambling Elephant Blog.
Nong Pleum : Plai Tawan : Outreach Programmes : Nong Dah : Poon Larb and Lynchee : Nam Chok & Pumpui : Adopt a Vet : Lamyai & Meena : Makam & Nam Khong : Moskva, Musa & Riga : Manau: Sakura
Moskva, Riga and Musa
Moskva, Riga and Musa are collectively known as the Russian Eles as they are sponsored by Moskow's premier luxury car dealer Musa Motors and Mr Boris Teterevs.
Moskva
It takes a certain sort of mahout to want to ride a tusker, yes there's some glory in it but also a lot of work and slightly more danger but when a young mahout inherited his family's old female he decided to take a gamble.
He swapped the old lady for a two year old Moskva who he found in Prachuab Khiri Khan province.
They went out onto the streets for four years as Moskva grew up, grew some tusks and grew to know about himself - they did spend some time in Bangkok but mainly led an itinerant life in the provinces.
They'd heard about our project and after four years on the road, finding a campsite every night, paying for even basic necessities from villagers, sleeping rough and running away from the law applied to come to our project at around the same time as Mr Teterevs and Musa Motors made their pledge.
Moskva is now the willing, if slightly old, recipient of a crush from Manau, one of our other rescued baby elephants.
Musa
Even Poj, her mahout, doesn't know too much about Musa, he bought her very young from Trat province, back when it seemed like a good idea to buy babies and go to the streets.
In January 2007 we met Musa in the Khao Kiew detention centre, they'd just been arrested and were having to prove the provenence of their elephants, the Government were performing DNA tests to ensure they were truly Thai.
After their Bangkok arrest Poj decided not to go back but instead made a small living moving from town to town in the North of the Isaan region where the Mekong river comes out of Laos again.
He had, however, taken our card when we met him at Khao Kiew and recognised our name when we called after the Musa Motors pledge.
Musa is another of our elephants to display stereotypic behaviour, when she first arrived, even unchained, she'd stand still where she was left and sway side to side, afraid to interact with the other babies - nowadays she's far more outgoing during her daytime freedom though she still sleeps in camp at night, afraid of the jungle night-time.
Riga
Another of the elephants we met in Khao Kiew Riga was, until the age of two, a show elephant for one of the commercial cultural stage shows in the South of Thailand.
She was sold as a very skinny two year old as it had been decided she was too big for her role and they already had enough large performing elephants - her time with the show taught her lots of tricks (which she doesn't have to show for us) but her mahout, Nui, is quick to point out her intelligence and ability to learn quickly.
Her time between the show and here was spent in Bangkok selling bananas and performing tricks for tourists and other streetlife, following their detention in Khao Kiew they did go back into Bangkok but were very keen to come back to civilisation when the Musa Motors pledge came through.
Moskva, Riga and Musa Links
...and then along comes Moskva
Riga and Manau enjoying a bath
