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By Phil Zabriskie
Posted Monday, October 3, 2005; 21:00 HKT
Sangduen "Lek" Chailert learned about healing from her grandfather, a shaman in northeastern Thailand, who once received an elephant as payment for saving a life. Chailert grew up with the animal, saw it as a member of the family, and, over time, adopted a characteristic commonly found in female elephants—the willingness to treat another's offspring as their own. And to protect them fiercely.
Though her nickname Lek means "small one," Chailert runs two healing and rehabilitation centers for Asia's largest animal: Elephant Nature Park and Elephant Haven, both north of Chiang Mai. At the Nature Park, she and her staff of mahouts (elephant handlers), veterinarians and volunteers tend to elephants that have suffered wounds or abuse by their owners. After they heal, Chailert transfers them to Elephant Haven, a 2,000-acre retirement home in which they live out their days. Today, 25 elephants live in Haven's forest.
Despite their respected place in Thai culture, the country's elephants badly need such a champion. Their numbers have dwindled from 100,000 a century ago to between 2,500 and 5,000, and logging has destroyed much of their habitat. Chailert doesn't object to elephants being used for labor, but she has taken in animals that have been blinded, shot, beaten, burned, maimed or left for dead after accidents. To abusive owners, they are tools. To Chailert, they are individuals with names—Hope, Liberty, Jungle Boy, Pooky—and personalities as unique as those of humans.
Surprisingly, such benign work—she also runs a mobile clinic for animals and humans—brings danger. Chailert and her staff have been threatened and harassed by less humane animal park operators and, she believes, local officials in league with them. Masked men have menaced her on the road, and local papers labeled her a traitor for publicizing the elephants' plight. Nonetheless, she says, "I can't turn my back on them. I can look in their eyes and see fear. Somebody has to stand up for them." The 44-year-old, who is often called the elephant whisperer, says there's a simple explanation for why she's dedicated her life to Thailand's endangered elephants. "Sometimes I'm sad," she says, "but in the morning, when I open my window and see them happy, that clears all my sadness away."
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