Volunteer vets keep Thailand's elephants on their feet

May 6, 1999
Web posted at: 3:39 p.m. EDT (1939 GMT)

(CNN) -- For the first time in 10 years, Si Nuan is living pain-free. The 42-year-old elephant had a huge abscess near his eye that no one ever tried to remove.

That is until 27-year-old Johan Lindsjo, a veterinarian from Sweden, spotted the problem during a visit to an elephant encampment. Lindsjo, part of the Thai Society for the Conservation of Wild Animals, decided to operate.

With the help of a fellow Swede and the elephant's keeper, called a mahout, he drained and removed the infection in about 15 minutes.

"The elephants can't tell you how they feel, but the mahouts feel very grateful and satisfied afterwards," says veterinarian Ylva Persson. "And of course, for the elephant to have an abscess for ten years and now we have treated it, it's great, of course."

The team of volunteers, set up two years ago, is touring the resort of Pattaya, bringing free medical care to the growing number of elephant encampments that cater to the tourist industry. In the past year, the number of camps has doubled from three to six.

Since the decline of the local logging industry, tourism is all that's left for the elephants. But the marshy, urban land is not their natural habitat, and it exposes them to frequent health problems, especially eye and feet infections, cuts and parasites.

Despite their enormous size, Society members say they're easy to treat.

"The elephants are very domesticated, so I think most are easy to treat because they have been trained by the mahouts, the keepers," says Lindsjo. "They look big so you have to be careful and have respect, but you always have the mahout with you, who knows where the limit of the elephant is."

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