Tuesday, April 9, 2013

weekly review - by Amber Bence


Monday 1st April, 2013
Today was a really good hike with some really good viewing of the elephants. We only walked a short distance when we came across Thong Dee.  We attempted to follow her but then became distracted as we came across Boon Jan and Sen Jep . They were both at a great observing point at a watering hole. Sen Jep was rumbling quite a lot. We sat here for some time and watched as Sen Jep hog all of the water. This making Boon Jan have to find another water hole as  every time her trunk got near the water Sen Jep pushed her out of the way.
We continued walking and found Mahnah and Pbee Mai being brought down to us by their Mahouts. We watched and followed them for some time. Pbee Mai was on his own for quite a lot of our time with him today.  He didn’t seem very happy with us following him closely today and was very vocal and ran up the hill. We decided not to push him to much so ended the hike.

Tuesday 2nd April , 2013
Today we health checked all of the elephants apart from Sen Jep. This was because she seemed still to be quite stressed and was still chained. All elephants were healthy and happy. Boon Jan seemed to have a watery eye so this will be checked again on the next health check.  We then followed them across the burnt forest and observed them eating in the forest.
Wednesday 3rd April , 2013
We hiked through the same area where we have been for the past few days but didn’t have to walk far before we came across Thon Dee. We followed her down a very steep path where she continued up the hill and we watched Mahnah and Bpee Mai who were also on the same hill. We only followed Bpee Mai for a short time as he was in a playful mood and we were only on a narrow path. We decided to watch from a safe distance on the other side of the valley. Here we could observe them much better. They were not interacting with each other today. Boon Jan arrived to join the others as they ate on the vally side.
Thursday 4th April 2013
We hiked for a short time and found San Jep and Boon Jan. we did the health check on Boon Jan-  her eyes were still a little bit watery.  We then continued the hike to find the others. We hiked for a long time ( 1 ½ hours) before finding Mah nah and Bpee Mai very close to where we started near Boon Jan.  we carried out a health check on Bpee Mai but not Mah nah as her chain had broken.  We decided not to follow the other elephants as everybody was tired from the hike.
Friday 5th April 2013
We found the Boon Jan and Sen Jep chained close to each other and when unchained they continued to hang around with each other throughout the observation. All of the elephants were in close proximity of each other and eating together in a gully/ dry river bed.
Phee Mai paid a lot of attention to Tong Dee today. Eating what she was eating. Touching her mouth and then continuing to eat. San Jep was rumbling a lot when with the other elephants and there was some trunk banging but we were not sure who was doing it. We stayed with them for a while as they were all together. 

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