Caring for Cambodia's elephants during Covid

GlobalGIving - Caring for Cambodia’s Elephants During Covid

During the past year, your support has helped so much. But we need your help to continue ELIE & the Elephants Valleys mission to support elephants and the local Bunong community. 

GIVINGTUESDAY is coming up on Nov 28th. You can be a beacon of change for ELIE and get your GivingTuesday donation matched. GlobalGiving is giving away $1.2 million to nonprofits around the world as part of their #MoveAMillion campaign for GivingTuesday. And the more you give, the more we get.

The world needs you. Your light, your passion, and your hope. On GivingTuesday, you’re not just donating—you’re joining a global celebration of generosity. 

So mark your calendars today! Together, we can help the elephants of Cambodia.

Report - June - Oct 2023

We had originally opened a project on GlobalGiving to get us through the crisis of the covid pandemic, but as we are moving out of the critical phase of this pandemic, we are looking 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
• These last few months our mobile vet team has been quite busy attending to our elephants on site. With the slippery conditions, two of our older girls weren't able to get enough solid footing to get up after lying down to sleep. Our vet team was called out to help them get the elephants up. Once the elephants were up, our vet team was available to provide multi vitamin injections.  

• Captive Elephant Care & Rehabilitation @ the Elephant Valley Project
• Unfortunately one of the saddest times here at EVP for a while, Sambo's tooth infection eventually got the better of her, and we lost our beloved old girl in October. In her final month, we had modified her diet to a mostly liquid diet. It was all hands on deck to provide her large quantities of chopped up bamboo to be added to her cooked, soupy rice mixture. We were all saddened by the immense loss. Your support allowed us to continue to make her as comfortable as possible in her final days at EVP.  
• Our gentle Matriarch Ning Wan, experienced some very uncomfortable days, as she struggled through a blockage in her gut. Her teeth are quite worn down, as is natural for elderly elephants, meaning that she can not chew her food as well, as thus she at times becomes constipated. Your support allows us to provide soft food for Ning Wan, such as rice and cucumbers. With your support we are also able to provide the medical care she needs during these times.  
• In June, our vet consultant Dr. Trish visited the project as a lecture for The School of Field Studies Elephant Ecology Course. When not giving lectures on elephant health, she was able to check over all of the elephants. Dr. Trish was glad to see the progress our bull Hen is making adjusting to his disability of a dislocated hip. We have made some changes to his pain medication, and have seen great improvement in Hen’s mobility.  We are so thankful for your support, which allows us to continue to care for this gentle giant.  
• As the rains end, and the dry windy season begins, we will start paying special attention to each elephant's weight. This is usually the time of the year that we need to provide additional food support to each of the elephants, as less of their natural diet becomes available in the forest. We thank you for your support in keeping these elephants happy and healthy!

• Natural Resource Protection Project 
• N/A
  
  

Ecotourism Program

• Elephant Valley Project 
• Unfortunately tourism still has not recovered to pre pandemic numbers, and we continue to search for alternative funding sources. We are very grateful to our partners at The Wildlife Conservation Society for awarding us an EcoTourism Grant to rebuild some of the basecamp and help recover from the impacts of the pandemic. After the very quiet and low tourist months of September and October, this grant was greatly appreciated as it allowed us to back pay some salaries to our amazing animal care and ecotourism staff.  We continue to seek additional funding sources so we can continue to back pay all those who generously donated much needed supplements to our resident elephants.  
• In July, with the support from the organization Share The Wonder, we hosted all the grade 6 students from the three local Putrom Villages, a total of 27 students and 3 teachers. The students took part in a full day of fun activities, from a jungle trek, out to see some of our resident elephants, learnt about forest conservation, made elephant masks, and completed a nature scavenger hunt.  Thanks to all of our donors for helping us to spread appreciation for elephants and the forest! 
• The rainy months were a perfect time of the year to do bamboo planting around the EVP site. Our hungry elephants eat approximately 10 -15% of their body weight, so it was great to have our volunteers and day guests assist in getting their hands dirty with some bamboo planting.  
• Our summer group season also saw some international school groups join us at the project.  In addition to observing the elephants, they helped out around the site doing trail maintenance, bridge repairs, and building fences for positive reinforcement elephant training.  It was a great help to have large groups tackle projects, and go on to spread the word about EVP.  

Community Support Program

• Health Care Support Project

• We continue to offer emergency hospital transport to anyone in the village.  We recently assisted several pregnant mom’s get to the local hospital, to ensure a safe delivery!

• School Support Project

• On Hold - no funds. 

• Community Development Project

• On Hold - no funds.