Chiang Mai elephant sanctuary faces closure amid family inheritance dispute

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The renowned family-managed elephant sanctuary, Mae Sa Elephant Camp in Chiang Mai, might be confronted with closure amidst an ongoing legal battle over inheritance between the late owner’s eldest child and his spouse (her stepmother).

 

The camp, nestled in the Mae Rim district of this northern province, has been grappling with monetary issues that are impacting its operations, according to its manager, Anchalee Kalamaphijit. She is the first-born child of the late camp proprietor, Chuchart Kalamaphijit.

 

According to Anchalee, one major factor attributing to the camp’s liquidity difficulties is a legal dispute. This revolves around Chuchart’s will, which bestows a business portfolio valued at over one billion baht to his offspring and spouse.

Anchalee disclosed that the State Property Office officials had sent notifications concerning overdue payment for the camp’s site rent, a fee summing several hundred thousand baht.

 

by Mitch Connor

Picture: Elephants at the Mae Sa Elephant Camp in Chiang Mai. Picture courtesy of Bangkok Post.

 

Full story: https://thethaiger.com/news/national/chiang-mai-elephant-sanctuary-faces-closure-amid-family-inheritance-dispute

 

-- © Copyright Thaiger 2023-07-18

 

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[BritManToo]

A place where you could pay to ride elephants, watch them play football, do tricks and paint.

Not much of a sanctuary IMHO.

[Bassosa]

"Sanctuary" is just the latest buzzword to make serious $$$ off of elephants. 9 out of 10 "sanctuaries" should be boycotted to be honest. I looked into the whole trade a few years ago and spoke to a few insiders. It's like Netflix's Tiger Kingdom but with elephants.

[jcmj]

If you look at their website it says they no longer allow rides and don’t do the paint show. So maybe they have made some good changes, but still three times the price for tourists. 

[KhunLA]

One can only hope it gets shut down ... may all the rest follow suit ????

[Tropicalevo]

1 hour ago, KhunLA said:

One can only hope it gets shut down ... may all the rest follow suit ????

And then, what happens to the elephants?

Starvation?

There is no easy solution to this problem.

There are three elephant sanctuaries on Koh Samui.

They are all struggling for funds to look after the little darlings.

[KhunLA]

1 hour ago, Tropicalevo said:

And then, what happens to the elephants?

Starvation?

There is no easy solution to this problem.

There are three elephant sanctuaries on Koh Samui.

They are all struggling for funds to look after the little darlings.

You honestly think elephants forget how to eat if not in a cage ????

[Tropicalevo]

8 minutes ago, KhunLA said:

You honestly think elephants forget how to eat if not in a cage ????

I have never seen an elephant in a cage.

I have seen them in the wild in Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka.

They need lots of space.

However, there is not enough land for the ones here. They need lots of extra grub. (Samui is not very big!)

The ones on Samui are all ex tourist/working ones. Bought from different 'work sites' throughout Thailand.

[ibjoe]

Breeding and domesticating elephants is stressful for them. Consider that in 1989 Thailand banned timber harvesting, an industry that employed thousands of elephants. They are all now out of work and very expensive to care for and feed. Ideally they would be set free, but some don't know how to live in the wild, and available land resource for this is scarce. So, many of these retired timber elephants are in tourist trade, which is probably much easier for them than logging industry. And that pays for their food and care. I would not consider a place producing fresh elephants for tourist trade, but providing retired elephants would okay as long as they are well treated. We rode an elephant that was a retired timber elephant, about 35  ears old. After the short ride we feed her, bananas, pineapple, and some kind of grassy plant.
Ref : https://www.eleaid.com/country-profiles/elephants-thailand/
We also visited Elephant Nature Park in Chiang Mai. It was a real sanctuary, mostly rescue elephants with various medical, etc. problems, also a variety of other rescue animals. Expensive compared to tourist elephant activity, but a good cause.
Ref : https://www.elephantnaturepark.org/enp/

[heybruce]

7 hours ago, KhunLA said:

You honestly think elephants forget how to eat if not in a cage ????

Do you honestly think hungry elephants with no fear of humans will stay out of farmers fields?

[sharksy]

Not sure if it was this place, but I have an Oesteopath friend who goes to an Elephant sanctuary near Chiang Mai to calm the elephants that have a limb blown off from an old landmine.  He calms the elephants down, and helps them adjust to prostetic limb.  Only guy in the world who does this apparently!

He certainly worked wonders on my back in the past haha