Caring for Cambodia's elephants during Covid

GlobalGIving - Help the elephants of Cambodia - Mar 23 - June 23
Report - Mar 23 - June 23

As we finally move away from thoughts of the pandemic, and tourism begins to return to Cambodia, we continue to look forward to rebuilding and recovery. For this we continue to rely on your support, while visitor numbers are still low, to support the elephants and indigenous community who rely on this forest.

Elephant Conservation Program
Mobile Vet Team Project

• Working together with WWF and Wildlife Conservation Society, one major project completed through May and June was a full DNA survey of the elephants in Mondulkiri. This is to contribute to a population estimate of the wild elephants in Cambodia. Our team supported the conservation program by taking the WWF/WCS teams to meet the captive elephants and get their samples. While at the same time we were able to do a full set of health checks on the remaining 25 elephants left in Mondulkiri province.
• Our mobile team of two have continued their visits to remote villages to conduct health checks on elephants. Our team recently traveled to two very remote areas, Memong and Orieng villages. Here they helped one male elephant with injuries sustained during his musth period, and also a female with a long standing abscess on her leg.
• Our mobile vet unit also responded to multiple emergency cases at the sanctuary, such as a recent snake bite to the leg sustained by one of our females, Doe. With multiple days of treatment, and much care and attention from both her Mahout and our vet team, Doe is back to her old self.
• The team was also on hand to help all the elephants at the EVP, providing care to our old ele’s by obtaining weights weekly, and helping to apply medications to any cuts, wounds, or inset bites the elephants receive.

Captive Elephant Care & Rehabilitation @ the Elephant Valley Project

• Funding during the last half of this year primarily went to the elephants' food and the caregivers' wages. We have had more guests booking in over the first few months of the year, but April and May were very quite.Fundraising and donations keep the elephants going through this time, as we still have a lot of bills to back pay from the gaps created due to the pandemic.
• A lot of funding continues to go to supporting and caring for our old girl Sambo. Unfortunately Sambo's tooth infection is continuing and she has deteriorated more. Her age and years on the streets of Phnom Penh, eating excess amounts of sugar and human food, have contributed to the problem. We have modified her diet to help her feed with softer food like rice, banana, sweet potato and tamarind. Funding support ensures we can give Sambo the best quality of life as she ages.
• Baby Gee Pich (Diamond) turned 1 in March! This has been a pretty intense year, but the little ball of sunshine is always shining through. She is learning a lot, starting to forage on leaves and getting more and more confident.
• We are lucky enough to be located next to the beautiful Keo Seima Forest Reserve, which is perfect habitat for both our sanctuary elephants as well as wild elephant populations. Unfortunately we have yet to see the wild elephants move deeper into the protected forest, thus we continue to keep our sanctuary elephants safe, by moving them to habitat that is closer to the communities. Therefore we continue to require your support to buy supplementary food in these safer areas that dont always allow for abundant forage in the evenings.

Natural Resource Protection Project

• We continue to provide 78 indigenous families with 30kg of rice each month. Your support helps us to continue to assist these families in relieving some of the pressures of daily life. The benefits of this food support program became evident recently, when several family farms around the protected area were damaged due to wild elephants.
• We continue to hope for funding so that we can assist the community in providing forest rangers for forest patrols.

Ecotourism Program
Elephant Valley Project

• We are so thrilled to have been able to host Elephant Ecology and Conservation Courses, in partnership with our friends at The School of Field Studies. University students were able to utilize the site to listen to lectures, and practice research methods by observing the elephants. Your support allows us to continue to spread our message about elephant welfare and elephant conservation.
• Though May and June were very quiet months, with very low guest numbers, however we were happy to host a small Operation Groundswell group of 5 people. The theme of their trip was “Backpacking with a Purpose” and we were grateful they chose us as one of their organizations to spend time with, as well as contributing their help on projects around the site.
• A USA based organization called Youthlinc spent 3 days with us at the end of June. The staff was happy to welcome them as they displayed a great eagerness to learn more about the Bunong culture, as well as support tasks around the site. We were thankful for their help in preparing our nursery of elephant grass and bamboo shoots, as well as their effort in making mud bricks. Your support allows us not only to teach about elephants, but to share the culture and knowledge of the Bunong people.

Community Support Program
Health Care Support Project

• Due to funding shortage our major health support program is still on hold, but we are starting to support the health center in the village for basic health access for community members.

School Support Project

• Scholarships On Hold - no funds.
• The wonderful organization Share The Wonder, helped us to host 30 grade 6 pupils from the three schools that surround the Elephant Valley Project. The students spent the day visiting one of our groups of elephants, taking part in a nature scavenger hunt, and utilized their creative talents by making elephant masks. The students had a great time spending the day in our nature classroom and were inspired to protect elephants and the forest. With your continued support we hope that we can bring this educational opportunity to all the community children on a more frequent basis.

Community Development Project

• On Hold - no funds.

Links:

• http://www.elephantvalleyproject.org