Baan Yen, is an 50 year old elephant who has spent half of his life, about 20 years in an elephant riding camp of Thailand. Apparently she has experienced a lot, as even after being rescued, she was struggling to get any sleep. She had not had any sleep for a week, before the rescuers from Phuket Elephant Sanctuary rushed for help.

The rescue staff is confident that the source of some of the elephant’s pain is the memory of being forced to breed with a bull elephant years ago. During this period she sustained serious injuries. So not only Baan has bad memories of her interaction with people, but also with her own kind – bull elephants.

The medical examination showed she was extremely exhausted so the veterinarians had to put serious efforts into her rehabilitation. The staff said that they were spending lots of time comforting her and talking to her in addition to providing for her medical needs.

The slight improvement in her condition was observed only after Baan met other rescued elephants in the sanctuary, and this is when she realized she is surrounded with friends

“Baan Yen has both physical and mental trauma and we are surrounding her with everything she needs so she can slowly begin to understand that she is going to have a beautiful life with us,” the sanctuary wrote.

Dok Gaew, another elephant with dark past  at the sanctuary, recently touched Baan Yen through her trunk over a fence. The sanctuary stated, “What is so sweet about these photographs is that our most worn-out elephant Dok Gaew is consoling a genuinely sad Baan Yen. We were observing this really precious moment in silence and were confident that Dok Gaew was indicating everything will be well. Baan Yen appeared to be considerably more at ease by the time Christmas rolled around.

“We couldn’t have asked for a better Christmas present than to see Baan Yen starting to feel a little bit better,” the sanctuary wrote. “She is spending her days out on the top area of our forest land along with Gaew Ta, our blind elephant.”

Elephants are extremely emotional animals and they feel a variety of emotions, such as melancholy, despair, sadness,  grief. They have a profound knowledge of one another and are kind, joyful, and caring – they are the most amazing creatures among terrestrial mammals, and we can learn so much from them.