Caring for Cambodia's elephants during Covid

GlobalGIving - Caring for Cambodia’s Elephants During Covid

Report - Q1 - Jan-Mar 2022

Elephant Conservation Program

 Mobile Vet Team Project

•  Limited Funding - the team responded to emergency calls to treat a male elephant in a remote community and then did some follow up treatments with elephants in other communities. However with limited funding this year, they were not on the road all the time, only when called

Captive Elephant Care & Rehabilitation @ the Elephant Valley Project

• Funding during the first quarter of this year again primarily went to food for the elephants and the wages for the carers. Cambodia opened its borders in Nov 2021, so we are getting the first international visitors and volunteers back in over two years, but still fundraising and donations are really what is keeping the elephants going through this time as we still have a lot of bills to pay.
  
  
• Biggest news of the first quarter of this year is that our rescued elephant named Gee Pael (Pearl) has given birth to a healthy baby girl which we have named Gee Pech (Diamond) on 25th March 2022 at ELIE's Elephant Valley Project Sanctuary in Mondulkiri, Cambodia.
  
  As an endangered species, the birth of an elephant calf is always a significant event, no matter the setting, country, community, wild or captive. The Elephant Livelihood Initiative & Environment organisation (ELIE) was created to run a rehabilitation and retirement program for Cambodia’s ageing captive elephant population, by seeing them stop working and return to the forest, while also protecting the forest for the wild elephants. Many of the 70+ captive elephants left in the country are in their 40’s, 50's, 60’s and are too old to reproduce, leaving only a handful of females in their 30’s of breeding age.
  
  Our youngest resident at the EVP, Gee Pael (Pearl), is a 35 year old rescue that arrived at the EVP in 2013. Previously she worked for her old owners hauling timber in the forest and transporting materials between villages. This is amazing for her to have her first baby, however, it was never our purpose or intention to breed Pearl, but just allow her to live her life back in the forest as naturally as possible.
  
  Nature had other plans. 2020 saw an influx of wild elephants roaming the edge of the large protected forest of Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary (KSWS) and crossing over into the Putrom Community forest and the EVP elephant sanctuary. The movement into this area is likely from an increase in deforestation and land grabbing around the area. In March 2020, a wild bull came further into the EVP forest area and ran away with Pearl. After close to 24 months of pregnancy, Gee Pael (Pearl) gave birth in the early hours of Friday morning. Mother and baby are doing well after the first few days. Gee Pael (Pearl) is tired after the birth but seems to be a natural mother. We feared she would be either aggressive toward the baby or scared and run away, but she is showing love, care and protective instincts for the baby. The baby is strong, healthy and drinking milk from the mother well.
  
  
• All the other elephants are healthy and happy, making through the dry season fairly well for a bunch of old ladies and gents. Our weekly food budget for the elephants is close to $1000, so all funds generated this quarter went to paying community suppliers and wages for the staff on site who deliver extra food to the elephants each day.

 Natural Resource Protection Project 

• Funding for forest rangers - On Hold - No funds
• Community Forest - Rice Compensation for elephant forest
  Support for elephants to graze in the forest - funded by World Animal Protection and the Simpson Family & WAVE in Canada. Continued 30kg of rice support per month per family for 78 indigenous families who own the forest where our elephants reside. This support is crucial particularly in times of difficulty, for example the last two years of the pandemic.

Ecotourism Program

Elephant Valley Project 

• By funding the care for the elephants and the staff at the EVP, we were able to keep the site open to host 169 guests during this quarter and generate more of the much needed funds to continue operations.
• With more fundraising this quarter we are continuing to rebuild our accommodation at the EVP site to host more guests and get ready for the upcoming summer. With funding used to buy materials such as roofing sheets, nails, rope etc.
• We continued to purchase small fuel allowance was issued to staff on a weekly basis in order to assist in the commute to the site, whilst there was a delay in the payment of wages. This allowed for the cooks and cleaners especially, to continue their work with the organisation.

Community Support Program

Health Care Support Project

•  On Hold - no funds

School Support Project

• On Hold - no funds

 Community Development Project

•  On Hold - no funds