Page 19 - Chiron 2024

every year. Once the rainy season starts, work is limited and unless good drainage is in place erosion rapidly takes place. A priority in 2018 was therefore to install drains and we also planted lots of trees, including rain trees, cherry trees and banyam trees - each species carefully chosen to be eco-friendly to benefit the
site for the elephants, and to attract native wildlife.
elephants that need our help. It is
a Community Support programme, and we make no charge for our work. We employ two full-time veterinarians and work closely
with our colleagues in the Thai government elephant departments to ensure all elephants in the region have access to veterinary treatment and are checked annually for health and location. Importantly, all elephants are now required by Thai law to be microchipped.
During the Covid pandemic, several hundred mahouts were suddenly deprived of any income as tourism virtually stopped overnight. This resulted in a serious elephant food shortage, and we launched
a ‘feed the hungry elephants’ campaign that raised £45,000 in just a few weeks, enabling Jakrapob and his team to deliver 250 truck-loads of food to elephants throughout the South.
Building works started in 2019.
We kept things simple – a covered treatment barn with a reinforced concrete floor, stocks, barriers, and a recessed vertical step (called a haha) for off-loading and loading elephant patients. There is an
office, with stores and a lab, later extended to include accommodation for our veterinary volunteers and huts for mahouts who may have to stay overnight with their elephant patients. We also had to lay concrete roads to the Clinic and last year we raised funds to
provide mains
electricity,
requiring 140
concrete posts
to deliver the
power across
some four miles from the main road to our rural location. At present, we are completing works on an isolation unit and an intensive care unit.
There is a very real and urgent health and welfare need to serve hundreds of domesticated elephants in this part of Southern Thailand. The Asian elephant is on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species and estimates indicate that fewer than 50,000 remain, of which Thailand is home to around 3,500 wild elephants (in protected areas) and 3,800 domesticated elephants, most of which are used in tourism and some in logging.
At the hospital, we care for all
By November 2020, we had started seeing our first patients. Our senior vet, Dr Aon, had come
to us with considerable experience of wildlife, including elephants. Until the hospital itself opened, she worked entirely from the mobile
clinic, a converted Toyota pickup, and travelled many thousands of kilometres to villages and remote areas. She sees a wide range of conditions ranging from common problems such as lice and gadflies, to colic, eye conditions, wounds, and injuries etc., through to
the devastatingly fatal elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus (EEHV), a rapid-onset, acute haemorrhagic disease that primarily affects youngsters, particularly those between one and four years of age.
EEHV infects the microvascular endothelial cells – particularly of
the heart, liver, and tongue – leading to critical haemorrhages and often sudden death in about 80% of infected juveniles. If symptoms are recognised early enough (which
is very hard), and the animals can reach the hospital rapidly, then highly intensive care and massive doses of antiviral drugs and support therapy can lead to recovery, but this is sadly too rare, and much work is underway to create a vaccine. EEHV is a major threat to the long-term survival of the Asian elephant.
As of now, the STEF hospital
is fully operational, and we can welcome veterinary volunteers (graduates, undergraduates, and nurses) who want to learn about this magnificent animal at first hand
and spend time with Dr Aon and her colleagues. You can find out about our volunteer programme if you
go to www.stefthailand.org. If you are planning to visit the south of Thailand do let us know and come and spend a week or two with us. The Veterinary Centre is about 30 minutes’ drive from Phuket airport. Working with elephants may be a life-changing experience for you. It certainly has been for me. To learn more about our work, please see www.southernthailandelephants.org and click on Contact Us to receive our Newsletters.
*The author served with the RAVC in the 1970s and is the author of With
the SAS and Other Animals: A Vet’s Experiences During the Dhofar War 1973: published by Pen & Sword, 2011.
“All elephants are now required by Thai law to be microchipped”
Chiron Calling / 17