Day 5 - 24 Oct 07

The baby can walk and stand by herself

Since Tuesday (23 Oct) the baby is getting stronger and she can stand up. She still cannot walk popery. Volunteers help to support her - providing 24 hour care - until she can use all four legs to walk. We decided to move back and let her walk. The baby doing very well and drink milk all night. After she walk by herself she doesn’t want to sleep she keep walk to search all over around.

For the mother, she is very afraid of her own baby. Many times she tries to grab her baby and trample her. We decided to take her away to the field with Mae Geaw who is, in fact, her own biological mother .The mahout looks after the mother and the volunteers look after the baby. In the evening when we feed her milk we can hear the baby rumble. Her mother ran from the field to the shelter where is we keep the baby elephant. Mae Geaw run behind, but when the mother elephant arrived at the shelter first. She is so surprised to see the little baby. She turns away and look very afraid.

Some times she shows aggressiveness toward her baby. But many nanny elephant crowd around the youngster enclosure, excited to see new baby. It is the very picture of loving motherhood. Every morning when they wake up some group, as Mea Bua Tong Thong Jaan , Aura, Malai Tong , Somboon and Mae Elu  walk straight to the shelter to dote over the baby elephant. They caress her with their trunks as they stroke the baby. They trumpeting and try to communicate with the baby and circle the shelter as they try to get closer to the baby. We do hope soon the baby will have adopt mother if we cannot persuade her own mother to accept her.

The baby elephant has a huge support base!
 

Volunteers help to support her - providing 24 hour care - until she can use all four legs to walk.
Lek

Volunteer take turns helping the recovering infant elephant