Elephant Nature Park Sanctuary

While staying in Chiang Mai, Thailand in 2016, we visited the Elephant Nature Park, a sanctuary and rescue center dedicated to providing a safe haven for former captive working elephants, as well as other animals. Some 73 elephants, 400 dogs and 200 cats were living under the care of the staff and a large volunteer force at the time of our visit. Visiting this sanctuary was actually one of the main reasons I was drawn to Chiang Mai and the park is absolutely amazing. Our visit was focused on the elephants and our guide knew every elephant by name in addition to each elephant’s personal history. Many of the elephants were trained by their previous owners to provide rides to tourists or beg for money in the streets while doing tricks. We learned that these practices usually mean a very harsh life for the elephants due to the training they typically have to endure that uses painful hooks and beatings. The Nature Park strongly recommends never riding an elephant as a tourist for this reason.

Many of the elephants living at the sanctuary had to be treated for terrible injuries when they came to the Nature Park to live. The Nature Park provides full medical care for the animals’ entire lives and they also bury them on-site when they pass away. The Nature Park gives money to the elephants’ previous owners as an incentive to give up the elephant so the elephant can live in the sanctuary. They can pay from $40,000 for an older elephant to $1 million for a baby. There were several adorable babies at the park that were born there. Seeing the babies following and imitating the bigger elephants was so cute and sweet. There were only 3 male elephants in the whole park when we were there since those are harder to buy as they are usually hard workers and very lucrative to own.

Elephant Nature Park also has a popular volunteer program, which includes lodging and meals. I heard that spaces for this fill up well in advance so it’s best to apply as early as possible. Most adult elephants at the sanctuary were broken as infants, and then sent to work, making it rather difficult for them to ever be able to live and survive in the wild as nature intended. Animal lovers be warned, it is tough to hear about some of the terrible things some of the elephants have lived through and your heart will probably melt at least a hundred times a day when you see them now living in such a peaceful and happy place. Any visit will support the amazing work they are doing at the sanctuary to give these magnificent animals a pleasant life free from cruelty in a safe space.

An added bonus is that they offer a giant vegetarian buffet lunch with many delicious vegan options. We had quite a few vegans in our group during the park visit and we and met some lovely people from different parts of the world. It makes us so happy to know that places like this exist and that travelers are seeking out ethical elephant sanctuaries that have the best interest of the elephants at heart. We highly recommend visiting the Elephant Nature Park if you love and respect elephants and want to learn more about elephants and their role in Thai culture.