Sponsor an elephant @ The Elephant Valley Project

GlobalGiving - Sponsor an elephant @ EVP - Report - April - Jul 2023

ELIE & the Elephant Valley Projects (EVP) sponsor an elephant page is an ongoing funding program for the 12 elephants now at the EVP Sanctuary. Donors can sponsor one of our elephants as a monthly contribution or support them with a one off donation.

Firstly - Big News - Ruby has been chosen as a finalist in this year's Wild Animal Unique Personality Award by World Animal Protection. We need your help for her to win $10,000. Please help to share this news and get everyone you know to send in their vote! Voting closes 4th September 2023.

VOTE NOW at https://www.worldanimalprotection.org/wild-animal-unique-personality-award/finalists

More Info - The Wild Animal Unique Personality Award celebrates the distinctive personalities of wild animals and the venues that protect them from a life of commercial exploitation. The power of personality - Animals have unique natural behaviours and character traits that highlight their personality, intelligence and complex emotional lives. Understanding animal sentience is essential in compelling society to change how it treats animals. When we stop to regard animals' feelings, we cannot overlook the pain caused to wild animals through commercial exploitation. Animals don't deserve just a life of survival but an enriching life. The award platforms the incredible venues that, in recognising unique animal behaviours, provide wild animals with the best possible care. By introducing these venues' work to our global audiences, we can elevate their public understanding of high-level animal welfare and set a standard that will push other facilities to improve their care.

EVP Update
To give you a quick update on the 12 elephants at EVP, one of which you may be directly sponsoring, read on.

Sambo
Sambo has really been suffering with her tooth infection the last few months, with it spreading to her gum and mouth. She is mainly on a soft food diet now, as she struggles to eat the hard vines and leaves of the forest due to the teeth issues. Unfortunately pulling an elephant tooth out is not really an option, especially out in the jungle, we just have to try to treat the tooth/mouth issues with antibiotics and pain relief. Unfortunately these are serious issues for old ele’s and it's what eventually brings down most old elephants in the wild. Some days she is her spritely self, others she seems tired. But we will keep trying new medicines and doing our best to keep her as comfortable as we can. With your continual support this special old lady is receiving all the care and medication we can give her in these final years!

Nung Bra (Ruby)
As mentioned above, Ruby is a little star. She has been chosen as a finalist in the Wild Animal Personality Award. She has always been the little bodyguard, protector, teacher and now emotional support for her bestie Sambo. All these traits she is able to exhibit because she gets to live in the forest, with other elephants, naturally. We are able to provide this space for her with the help of sponsors like you, so thank you.

Gee Yul (Easy Rider)
During the last few months Easy Rider, and her bestie GeeNowl, have been spending time in our northern valleys away from the wild elephants. Not that this chunky monkey needs much extra food, but during the peak of the dry before the rains arrived, we did have to bring in more elephant food like banana trees and fruit, because there wasn't as much food in these northern dry forest valleys. There are some amazing views though in these areas and lots of grass to be eaten now the rains are here and Easy has been doing well. So thank you for your support for funding to cover these extra food supplements.

Gee Nowl
Together with Easy Rider, GeeNowl has also been in the northern valleys away from the wild elephants. But this dryer forest diet has been harder on the old girl whose teeth are also getting older. We boosted GeeNowl with lots of extra banana trees during this time and when the first rain came she greedily picked all the fresh new grass shoots. Unfortunately as her teeth aren’t able to grind down food as easily, she did suffer from a gut compaction. Luckily for us, keeping her hydrated, and with the help of some medications, she was feeling better within a few days. She really is showing her old age this year, with old skin, taking longer to heal from things like fly bites and scratches. So we thank you for your support for GeeNowl these last months and always.

Hen
Keeping Hen safe during the last few months of wild elephant season has been our top priority. He also was moved over to our northern valleys, albeit more slowly. He has been doing quite well this year. We had our international elephant veterinarian visit in June. Based on her consultation we updated his pain medicine to more nerve based pain relief. It seems to be helping a lot more and he is standing straighter and wandering around the forest more comfortably. We also spent a lot of human power cutting banana trees and delivering them to Hen during the driest months. All of this wouldn’t be possible without your continued support.

Gee Bloh (Doe)
Doe is doing great this year, bumbling about the forest as always. After moving further away from the wild elephants again into the northern valley, she was pretty chilled and focused on just eating bamboo. The chunky monkey did have a little issue with her leg in June. With a massive amount of rain this year, things got pretty slippery out in the forest this year. We think she slipped and essentially twisted her ankle. A week of some ice compresses and anti-inflammatories and she was back to her boisterous self. Your support contributed to her treatment and care.

Bong Kong (Darling)
Darling, has also been munching away on the new shoots of bamboo in the northern valleys for the last few months, safely away from the wild elephants. Similarly to Doe, she had some feet issues this quarter. We believe she slipped during some pretty bad weather during July and knocked her toenail on a rock, splitting it pretty badly. We did some emergency foot treatment and have trimmed the nail back and it is healing quite well. It will just take a while to grow back down. This is one of the main reasons we focused a lot of time on target training and desensitization of touching feet etc, in case there is a problem. A few treats and she is happy to stand still for 10 mins of treatment on her feet now, in a stress free way. Thanks for your continued support, enabling us to do rapid treatment for our beautiful Darling.

Ning Wan
Heading out of the dry season and into the start of the rainy season is always the best for our old ele’s. Fresh young soft shoots of grass and bamboo make it much easier for Ning Wan to eat. She is doing really well, always nice and full. She is even getting closer and closer to baby Diamond, showing signs or curiosity instead of annoyance. She still gets her yummy rice everyday, cucumbers and some watermelons, all helped by your ongoing support.

Mae Nang
Earlier this year our friend Steve, from Elephant Care Unchained helped us with some nail issues on Mae Nang. As her old legs are maybe becoming sore due to her arthritis, she is walking differently on her nails and thus developed some cracks in her nails over the dry season. Now we all know how nervous and naughty our old grandma can be, but with patience, lots of bananas and a few near misses by her feet, Steve managed to trim some of her nails to relieve the pressure. Her cracks are now growing down and she is walking a lot more comfortably. This highlights the importance of preemptive care practices and why we started the target training program for footwork with all our elephants.

Gee Chreng
Gee Chreng has had a great start to the wet season, munching away on all the fresh shoots. When we don't think she can get any bigger, she does! Every morning she comes over to Ning Wan, they have a chat and then they head off together. Besties for life. One great sign of her rehabilitation is that Gee Chreng is actually getting less and less interested in the visitors. As she was used in close contact tourism for many years before coming to EVP, she still would immediately come up to each group of guests expecting bananas. However she is now much more relaxed and more interested in grazing through the forest with Ning Wan. Which is the goal of our program. One of our most easy going and healthy ele’s, your support goes to her monthly care and family compensation.

Gee Pael (Pearl) & Gee Pech (Diamond)
Double trouble. Pearl and Diamond have been giving their mahouts a few headaches this last few months. As Diamond entered her 2nd year she is getting much more energetic and exploring further and further away from mumma Pearl. She then sometimes gets excited and then Pearl runs to her aid. Sometimes this is while the mahouts are working closely with them and a couple of months ago her mahout got knocked with a large bamboo branch in the scramble. But this is the life of a baby and the boys laugh at her antics, comparing her to a human toddler not understanding where she is going and the parents having to run after her. We have started basic training with her, touching the ear, tail, belly and she now gets a few bananas as rewards. This is all preemptive care, in case she gets sick, she will be used to us touching areas we may need to draw blood or give medicine.
Pearl is still doing really well, round, healthy and the new shoots of the rainy season have given her a boost as well. It's quite amazing to watch Diamond now copying Pearl by putting everything her mum eats in her own mouth. Not always eating it, but getting used to the texture. She will even sometimes steal food out of Pearl's mouth!

Thankyou

We want to thank you all for HELPING US, HELP THEM. Your support is helping us cover costs for medicine, supplements, and everything else for these amazing pachyderms. We are committed to providing a better life for the amazing retired and rescued elephants under our care, but we could not do this without you, so thank you all for your sponsorships and donations.

Links:

• VOTE for Ruby - help us win $10,000