Category: Tourism

In the company of the Kulen Forest elephants.

I recently had the great pleasure to meet and spend the day with a group of fourteen Asian elephants at the Kulen Elephant Forest in Cambodia, a new retirement sanctuary for the Angkor Wat elephants who spent most of their lives giving tourist rides round the temples.

Wild elephants are rapidly declining in Cambodia with only 600 inhabiting small pockets of forest which do not allow any integration. There are also 75 captive elephants with various conservation organisations encouraging owners to relinquish them. Fourteen of these reside at the new 530 acre Kulen Elephant Forest which opened in January 2020, where they can finally roam relatively free and lead a semi-natural life.

Being introduced to some of the elephants before taking a walk with them. Photo: John Brookland

The Kulen Community Forest has mostly disappeared and is situated an hours drive north of Siem Reap in the Kulen Mountain foothills. The forest belongs to the Bos Thom Community and was being heavily deforested for agricultural purposes with only 1100 acres remaining, until Kulen Forest Asia stepped in and negotiated with the villagers to take responsibility for and protect 530 acres to provide a home for the elephants. Cambodia is third on the list of countries deforesting at an alarming rate. The reserve is operated with their permission and cooperation and in return the villagers receive employment and payments for community projects from the tourist revenue and are paid for crops grown to feed the elephants.

They were “buddied” up and seemed devoted to each other. Photo: John Brookland

On arrival we hiked with a guide for twenty minutes through cultivated land and then suddenly into the forest to the newly built headquarters where we were greeted before being “introduced” to four of the elephants and told about their characters and how to act round them. I have been lucky enough to have spent a lot of time in the presence of elephants in Africa and Asia, but I am still wowed by their size, dignity, patience and gentleness. I am always drawn to their round piercing, but friendly eyes and just being around them is more relaxing than any spa. I will never understand how anyone can kill or mistreat them.

The elephants, when first brought to the reserve, were allowed to choose partners and are “buddied” up with each pair appearing to be devoted to each other. They have a dedicated mahout who spends dawn to dusk with them making sure they come to no harm. They are allowed as much freedom as possible and chance to socialise and indulge natural behaviours. It is of course impossible for them to do completely as they please as there are no fences or barriers. Unfortunately they can never become truly “wild” again, but they can enjoy roaming the forest grazing, taking dust and mud baths, swimming and anything else they desire to do with the exception of one thing – damage the trees. Left to their own devices they would destroy the forest very quickly so the mahout gives them a shout when they sneakily start pulling branches down. They are fed daily with bulk feed and added supplements to keep them healthy and the operation is overseen by an elephant specialist.

Enjoying a mud bath in the forest. Photo: John Brookland

Watching and talking to the mahouts it was obvious they were devoted to the elephants and their welfare and I could see they took pleasure in keeping the elephants happy often going out of their way to provide treats like chopping up a coconut for them. The elephants were also completely at ease with them and visitors like ourselves, but being such large creatures it can be a danger to be around them and you need to act sensibly.

Our day with the elephants involved trekking through the forest with them, watching them bathe and have a mud bath and just chilling out with them. They happily joined us for a picnic and went mad with expectation like kids when we prepared rice ball treats containing supplements for them. We were ecstatic and the elephants appeared happy and contented as well.

Enjoying a bath in the newly created lake at Kulen Elephant Forest. Photo: John Brookland

When contemplating visiting so-called “sanctuaries” many animal welfarists and animal rights advocates can be put off which is a shame, but with a little research it is possible to weed out the genuine conservation and welfare operations. Kulen Forest is quick to point out that there “are no tricks, no riding, but offer a fun, educational approach to elephant conservation and contribute as much as possible to preserving the remaining elephants of Cambodia”.

Using tourist revenue to provide income for the local community while preserving forest and habitat and providing a safe haven for captive working elephants seems to be a win win solution. Educating and getting the cooperation of local people through financial gain may not be for all conservation purists and yes, its a shame the elephants cannot be left to roam freely in peace, but these days it has got to be about compromise if we are going to “save” animals and habitat and provide them with a better life.

Looking for the rice balls when joining us for lunch

“Saving Britain’s Worst Zoo.”

BBC documentary “Saving Britain’s Worst Zoo” highlights what is so wrong with our attitude to zoos.

There shouldn’t be a ‘worst’ zoo in the UK in the first place.

BBC Wales and iPlayer are showing a documentary series “Saving Britains Worst Zoo” which depicts how a family buy a zoo called ‘Animalarium’ in Wales even though they admit “We didn’t have any idea of what we were doing.” There shouldn’t be a worst zoo in the first place if licensing authorities and inspectors were doing their job properly. So where were they and how can it be possible to allow such people to buy a zoo with dangerous animals? Do we really take public and animal safety so lightly.

“a place in the deepest depths of no-onesville very much like a zoo where species of a non-human form are kept and caged…and often escape”

ANIMALARIUM – Urban Dictionary definition.

In 2016 a zoo called Animalarium in the town of Borth, Wales came up for sale and was bought by a couple who by their own admission didn’t have any experience and within two years animals had escaped and died and they ran up a £350,000 debt. But sadly it appears few people see any problem or query how this could happen in our country of animal lovers with all our animal protection laws.

This is particularly so with the BBC, who appear to be encouraging such actions by not just showing one program but a whole series to advertise the zoo. The owners were interviewed on the BBC Breakfast show on the 23 July 2019 with smiles and commendation for their honesty as though they were some kind of heroes.

Borth Zoo or to use its hip name of Animalarium was sold by its owners of 15 years in 2016. In their media advertising of the sale they described who they were willing to sell to in this way:

“I would expect them to have at least some interest or experience and to research what running a zoo actually entails. The practical problems are a cross between running a boarding school and a prison. Anyone interested in the sale needs to have some experience of keeping exotic animals, but not necessarily from a zoo background as the staff are all experienced. Running a zoo is hard work but very rewarding.”

“We didn’t have any idea of what we were doing”

The family who bought the zoo were an “animal-mad couple” with three children who always wanted to live in Wales and were quoted as saying “we wanted a small petting farm to do animal and people therapy. We had 40 animals before we moved. We used to breed tortoises and had chickens, rabbits, chinchillas, everything. We didn’t have much of an idea what we were doing but everything I don’t know I research.” It would appear they also bought it as it had a nice two bedroom bungalow with sea views and of course they were animal lovers and had owned pets so had all the experience they needed to take on a zoo.

Should such animals be in the hands of people who do not what they are doing.

Their initial inept attempts at operating a zoo led to escapes and deaths of animals. In October 2017, a lynx escaped for 12 days before being shot in case it harmed “children.” A week later a staff member managed to strangle another lynx with a catch-pole (a rope noose on a pole) which was described as an accident but was probably due to lack of training in using such an implement. In the case of the escaped Lynx it was two days before they noticed it missing because the enclosure was apparently too overgrown to spot it. It seemed not to occur to them to search the enclosure in case it was sick, injured or dead.

At this point the local authority intervened and closed the zoo to the public for five months while they made over 26 improvements allegedly running up a debt of £350,000. Initially their licence to keep dangerous animals such as the lions and leopard was withdrawn but later reinstated. The zoo was obviously rundown when they bought it which doesn’t say much for the local authority licensing officers who should have been checking it. Inexplicably, the ban on keeping dangerous “category one” animals was then lifted by Ceredigion council as long as a qualified keeper was present. But why wasn’t there a qualified keeper in the first place?

The park’s owners claim that they act like a rescue centre for exotic animals and take in unwanted pets and animals from other zoos to provide them with a safe place to live for the rest of their lives. But how safe are their long term prospects.

One could pardon them on account of their naivety and put it all down as a steep learning curve, but at what cost. At least two lives of beautiful lynxes were lost while they learned on the job. Do we really take such lives so lightly. Should we be allowing the sale of zoos and similar animal attractions to anyone who feels they want to own one despite their experience and qualification. I blame the local authorities and lack of regulation for the deaths of the two lynxes.

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