Elephants have long been an important part of Thai culture. As the beasts of burden that helped build this country, they were used extensively in logging, building and virtually everywhere else heavy labour was needed. In times of war, the elephant served in the front lines as living tanks to protect Thailand from invasion and collapse. Reverence for the white elephant is still very much a part of this culture. And elephants live in the nations’ myths, legends and history. According to the Buddhist scriptures, for example, the mother of the Lord Buddha was visited in her dreams on the eve of his birth by a great white elephant that bore the gift of a lotus flower, the symbol of purity and knowledge.

Thailand’s monarchs have always believed that their reign was linked to the health and care of their fleet of white elephants. Any discovery of a white elephant is to be presented directly to the king, and there are apparently some 78 tests to determine the purity of the find. For instance, it’s said that a white elephant will never eat fruit that has touched the ground. Its eyes must be yellow, the mouth must be pink inside, its hair must be transparent in the light and so on. White elephants are exceedingly rare, and none have been found for many years.
An elephant always draws looks of wonder and enchantment from those who have rare contact. And no wonder they’re so fascinating. Reaching heights exceeding 3 metres and weighing more than 5,000 kilos, the largest living land animal is also a creature of great sensitivity. Highly social, keenly intelligent, affectionate, protective and nurturing, these mammals display amazing finesse, superb balance, and can run at speeds of 40kph. Few creatures match the wonder of a native Thai elephant.

An elephant’s lifespan is around 70 years, roughly the same as humans. Its course of development through life is also similar to humans. A baby elephant is suckled by its mother for 2 to 4 years. It reaches sexual maturity at around 13 to 16 years, and doesn’t reach full growth until about 20 years. From 20 to 40 years, it’s in its productive prime. At 50, it begins to slow down and take on less of a load. In the twilight of life, in its natural habitat, it perishes amid the grief and sorrow of its herd.

Elephants sometimes carry the bones of their dead for days, caressing them before laying them down in a chosen final place and avoiding that area for the rest of their lives. Grieving mother elephants have been observed to carry their dead offspring around for days. Captive Thai elephants can also exhibit such emotions for their human caretakers. “When an elephant has killed their mahout or trainer, whether accidentally or in fit of rage,” says Robert Grifinberg of Siam Safari, a local expert of Thai elephants, “they will often try to cover the body in leaves as if they are ashamed and know they have done wrong.”

Elephants live in closely related herds of 10 to 25 creatures. Females will stay with the herd their entire lives, but the males leave the herd at about 13 years (coinciding with sexual maturity) and usually roam independently, only returning to the herd to mate. The most powerful bull lays claim to mating rights with all the females of the herd — though some promiscuity is common. The most powerful, eldest, and wisest female is the leader of the herd. The great matriarch is respected and revered. Unlike the male of the species, she isn’t challenged for authority, and leads the herd until her death or when she no longer has the strength to do so. She knows the paths to the most distant supplies of food and water in times of drought or stress. For a creature that eats up to 300kg of food a day and drinks 150 litres of water, the quest for food is a reigning priority.

Here in Phuket Province and adjoining regions, you may see many elephants working in the trekking industry, either at work or grazing the fields in the mornings and evenings. Due to the social nature of elephants, you rarely meet the owner of a single elephant.
“You can’t just have one elephant without putting yourself in danger, because elephants generally aren’t happy when they’re isolated,” says Griffinberg. “They have a great deal of social order and emotional dependence upon each other. So elephants must be kept with other elephants, or they will often misbehave.”

When a female elephant, or cow, is pregnant she carries the baby between 18 and 22 months. When it’s time for her to birth, the other females surround her in a circle of protection, and she squats down with her immense frame and labours to produce her 90-100kg calf. Upon its arrival, the other females lick the baby clean to keep the smell of birth from attracting predators. The mother then selects a nurse or “auntie” from among the other females. The auntie will help raise the baby, watching, protecting and disciplining a naughty calf when the mother is busy. If the mother dies, the auntie will care for the calf as her own. A mother elephant is exceedingly loving and tender towards her young. She teaches it, by example, how to forage and dig for food, how to use its amazing trunk for all manner of survival tasks and for fun. She lies with her baby, and often covers it, or fans it with leaves to protect the child from insects.
Although the baby can stand only an hour after birth, it doesn’t yet have control of the 100,000 individual muscles in its trunk. The baby learns by observing his mother and by trial and error. You can meet several baby elephants in Phuket, as many of the trekking companies currently have calves.

I stop to feed Salie, who lives at an elephant camp on the Baan Yanui Road, between Nai Harn and Kata, and Malie on the crest of the hill coming into Patong. They like their bananas. Salie is polite and nods a curtsey in appreciation. Malie just gets impatient with one at a time, and bypasses your handout and, if her little trunk can reach it, goes for the whole bunch. Siam Safari has four young ones, one only 11 month old. She’s already a quite a little cracker. If you visit the babies, you find they are inquisitive and examine things incessantly by touching, smelling and holding unfamiliar objects.

Although elephants have rather poor eyesight, seeing only up to 10 metres, their gigantic ears are thought to have the best hearing of any land animal. “It is always best to approach the elephant from the front so it can see you,” explains Malie’s mahout, or keeper. They smell you and hear you long before they see you, and can become nervous if they think you are sneaking up on them.”

It was only a few years back that scientists studying the African elephant observed a mysterious phenomenon. From helicopters, they could see several different herds moving across the plains in search of food and water. The different groups were over eight kilometres away from one other, yet when one group finally found water, all the other groups suddenly changed course towards the water. How had they communicated? Further study revealed that the beast can shimmy a large fleshy mass on its forehead to produce a low-frequency sound wave, inaudible to humans, that other elephants can hear nearly 15 kilometres away. This is an excellent illustration of both their exceptional hearing and their socially cooperative and compassionate nature. It remains to be discovered, however, exactly what different messages an elephant can communicate in this manner.

Bull elephants do belong to the herd they were born into, and although the bulls are mostly solitary in nature and keep their distance, they maintain contact with their herd through their whole life. They sometimes form a less formal “bachelor” herd and socialize and forage with other males. Just prior to the mating period, a bull goes into musth. Glands near the eyes produce a sticky secretion which begins to run down the face. “When the secretion reaches the mouth and the bull can taste it, the elephant is near the point of madness,” explains Griffinberg, “and can be wildly unpredictable and dangerously violent.”

The bull’s penis is retractable, but there is no scrotum, as the testicles are housed internally. The bull will jostle and fight the other males, rearing, ramming, and sometimes clashing tusks. Mostly a show of ferocity, it rarely goes to the death. But sometimes the wounds inflicted are too great to heal, and the struggle turns fatal. The winning bull will attempt to mate with all the cows of the herd. The cows are coy at first and avoid the bull, but after a while the bull mounts the cow from behind, grasping her pelvis with his two front feet. The mating lasts a mere 30 seconds. While the alpha bull is busy with one cow, the younger bulls may sneak in to find a receptive cow of their own. After two or three days of this, the alpha bull drives off the other bulls and settles down with his ladies for about three weeks, eventually returning to his more solitary ways.

Thai elephants are a sub-group of the Asian elephant. In Asian elephants, only the males have tusks. It turns out that tusks are actually incisor teeth made from ivory. The only other creatures to have ivory incisors are walruses and narwhals — both of them marine mammals. In fact, the living species most closely related to the elephant are also marine mammals: dugongs and manatees — “sea cows” or, in some legend, “mermaids” — are their closest biological cousins. Over the history of the planet there have been 300 separate species of the order Proboscidea, including the ancient mastodons, mammoths, and pygmy elephants (thought to have died out in the Thai jungles as recently as 1920).

At the turn of the 20th century, Thailand still had hundreds of thousands of wild elephants. Now there are only 5,000-6,000. And the majority of these are domesticated. The great Thai elephant is vanishing quickly and needs your support. (See sidebar for information on Phuket’s Elephant Help Project.)