Filmwasters
Which Board? => Photo Essays => : charles binns June 05, 2014, 08:30:25 PM
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The Elephant Nature Park is a sanctuary for rescued Asian elephants in Chiang Mai province, northern Thailand.
Thousands of asian elephants work in the Thai logging and tourism industries and many of these are abused by their mahouts and forced to work in appalling conditions.
Beaten with hooked poles and chained at night, many of the elephants sicken and are traumatised by the treatment they receive from their keepers.
The Elephant Nature Park is a reserve founded by Lek Chailert for elephants rescued from the logging and tourism industry. Some of the elephants have been orphaned, some blinded by ill treatment and one was even missing part of a foot from having stepped on a land mine near the border with Cambodia.
The elephants are cared for by a team of dedicated staff and volunteers in an environment where they are never beaten, ridden or chained but instead are trained using positive behavioural techniques.
Tourists can pay to spend a day with these highly intelligent, social and inquisitive creatures and these photographs were taken during the day I was lucky enough to spend at the Elephant Nature Park.
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All images were shot with a Holga loaded with Portra 160
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Beautiful series, Charles.
Lara and I visited something very similar in Sri Lanka a few years ago. Unfortunately, some of the locals don't seem to appreciate that if you treat these wonderful creatures well, they will be great friends and workers for many years (assuming one agrees that it's acceptable to coerce animals into being workers).
As with many such situations, educating people to know better is the best cure for these cruel and random acts of stupidity and incredible cruelty.
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Love it!
This was a real good start of the day for me, thank you for sharing :)
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I am so glad that places like this exist. I am against using animals as labor slaves, but I would love to go to a rescue park and spend some time with these gentle beasts.
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Really love the first one in the second post. Fabulous.