Giant blankets warm orphaned elephants
When an unexpectedly cold front from China descended on parts of Southeast Asia last week, people in Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia bundled up in coats to stave off the region’s unusual weather.
But what’s an elephant to do?
The unseasonal cold weather hit the Winga Baw camp for orphaned elephants in Myanmar, according to Sangdeaun Lek Chailert, the founder of the Save Elephant Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in Thailand that is dedicated to protecting Asian elephants. Temperatures fell to 46 degrees Fahrenheit in some parts of the country.
“We haven’t had weather this cold in 40 years,” she said by phone Sunday while traveling through northern Thailand.
Workers at the camp scrambled to protect seven orphaned elephants in their care, using straw to keep them warm, she wrote in a Facebook post describing the operation. But the camp, in the Bago Region, also had a secret weapon: giant knitted and crocheted blankets.
They were donated by Blankets for Baby Rhinos, a wildlife conservation craft group founded in November 2016 on Facebook by Sue Brown, who has been involved in rhino conservation for 25 years, and Elisa Best, a veterinary surgeon.
The group of 1,500 knitters and crocheters is scattered around the globe. Jo Caris, a coordinator for Blankets for Baby Rhinos in France, said by email Sunday: “Our largest community of knitters and crocheters are in South Africa. After that, it’s the U.S.A., U.K., Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Europe.”
Young elephants are removed from the wild for entertainment purposes and become orphaned when their mothers die trying to protect them, the American Museum of Natural History says.
Chailert said she runs 28 camps in Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia for elephants that had been abused in the tourism and entertainment industries. For 10 years, she said, she has had a campaign to persuade tourism operators to use more humane methods to handle the animals. “No more riding, no more performing,” she said.
But it has been an uphill battle. By the time the elephants arrive at the camps, she said, many are disabled, blind or otherwise sick. In all, 77 elephants are in her care.