Testimonials from visitors and volunteers

Alison Peel

Elephant Volunteer

Spending two weeks doing volunteer work with Lek, at the Elephant Nature Park and with the Jumbo Express program has given me more than just experience treating and being around elephants but also education about the issues involved with their conservation in the wild and survival in the city. Lek and her colleagues have endless stories to tell. Some of the best experience with the Jumbo Express program were trekking and bamboo rating into the jungle to get to elephant camps that cannot reached by roads. Accompanying a vet, we treated many elephants for skin problems caused by bots fly larvae and gave antibiotic injections for those with infections. The elephants at many camps are work extremely hard which makes it a lot easier for them to get sick and many are in poor condition. A large part of our work with Lek involved treating hundred of dogs both in the city and remote villages for the common problems of mange (caused by mites), starvation and infections and for routine rabies vaccinations. Being a vet student, I found the medical side of things very interesting and gained excellent experience. It is so satisfying to see the improvement in dogs we visited several times at the temple in Chiang Mai city. We were also involved with addressing the problems of elephants begging for food on the street of Chiang Mai, and dancing and performing demoralizing trick in theater show. we wrote a pamphlet in English ( which was also translated into Thai ) explaining the situation which many tourist are unaware they are promoting. This was given to shop owners to display and also handed around at at the night market where Mahout take their elephants to beg for food.

Each day we learned of more and more valuable project that Lek was involved in an how extensive her work and kindness is . I was disappointed that our time here was so limited, and would have loved to stay for longer, but I am consoled by the hope that I will return again in future.

Alison Peel.

Sydney, Australia

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