gentle giants

While in Chiang Mai, Thailand, we made the decision to visit an elephant sanctuary. At first, our group was a little hesitant on the idea because there are a lot of ethical questions involved and we didn't want to unknowingly contribute to the mistreatment of these incredible animals. However, after doing our own research, as well as gathering recommendations from friends who had done their own research, we decided to include it in our plans. We ended up visiting a project, Elephant Freedom Village, run by a family from the Karen hill-tribe. The warmth of the people and their connection to the elephants was obvious. And it ended up being a really beautiful experience. Being able to interact with, touch and feed these enormous and ancient animals was something special and unique. I will obviously be posting more photos from this experience, but I did feel it important to share the ethics of this decision before sharing any more photos. Humans have an unbelievable ability to mistreat animals in really sinister ways, however we did not encounter any of this in our experience and in our research with regards to this particular project.
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"We admire elephants in part because they demonstrate what we consider the finest human traits: empathy, self-awareness, and social intelligence. But the way we treat them puts on display the very worst of human behavior."
-Graydon Carter