An adult elephant being lifted away during a rescue operation to recover an infant elephant that had fallen into the hole. - The Straits Times/ANN
BANGKOK, Sept 17 (The Straits Times/ANN): One wet morning in July, an elephant calf strayed out of the forest in Thailand's Khao Yai National Park onto the grounds of a golf resort in Nakhon Nayok province. It fell into a manhole so deep that its mother could not help.
But the adult elephant charged at people who tried to go near her baby.
A rescue team that included officers from the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation (DNP) sedated the mother elephant, but it stepped towards the pit using its last ounce of strength, slumping over the hole where its calf was trapped.
Rescuers then had to use a boom lift to heave the sedated adult elephant aside. It stopped breathing shortly after.
It could have ended in tragedy. But a petite woman in a blue smock hurled herself at the pachyderm. She called for the other rescuers around her to help revive the unconscious elephant, and they jumped up and down on its chest. When it eventually roused, she shouted at rescuers to run to safety.
The calf eventually scrambled out of the hole through a path that rescuers excavated. Together with its mother, it re-entered the forest unhurt. Wildlife veterinarian Chananya Kanchanasaka, meanwhile, drew national attention for her leadership of the entire operation.
It was a complex process involving some 30 men, including one group that she had dispatched into the forest to block any other elephants from coming to the aid of the distressed duo - and possibly endangering the human rescuers.
After the roughly hour-long mission ended, images of the rain-soaked 35-year-old vet crying in relief were shared all over Thai media.
"I cried with you Dr Bow!" wrote one Facebook user, referring to the vet by her nickname.
Last month, she was given the "Kaset Kla" award by her alma mater Kasetsart University for her courage and dedication. Previous recipients include former Chiang Rai province governor Narongsak Osotthanakorn, who directed the rescue of 12 footballers and their coach from a flooded cave in 2018.
Asked about her newfound prominence, she tells The Straits Times: "This is not just about me. There are many other wildlife veterinarians, who dedicate themselves to this work but are never recognised. They work in regions that few people can access.
"I happen to work near Khao Yai National Park, which attracts people from all over the country and hence gets a lot of attention. So this is an opportunity for me to help people understand my work."
Khao Yai, part of a forest complex listed as a World Heritage Site by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco), is three times the size of Singapore.
The park, about three hours' drive from Bangkok, is fringed by luxury resorts, holiday homes and farms, some of which provide rich pickings for stray elephants in search of sweet fruit.
Chananya is the only DNP vet to oversee Khao Yai as well as areas that stretch as far as Sa Kaeo province by the Thai-Cambodian border.
In contrast with her vast scope of responsibility, her desk at Protected Areas Regional Office 1 in Prachin Buri province is wedged into a corner of a small room housing the Wildlife Conservation Division.
There, she sits next to a cabinet full of veterinary medicine that props up a clutch of snake tongs. Asked about the clinic where she treats injured wildlife - which can range from electrocuted elephants to monkeys hit by cars - she says she tends to whatever animals she can, from the back of her agency's pick-up truck.
Chananya is fascinated by tigers, but it is elephants that tend to occupy her time.
In October 2019, 11 of them perished at a 150m-tall waterfall in Khao Yai called Haew Narok, or Hell's abyss. It was believed that a calf in the herd had slipped while trying to cross a swollen creek, and the other 10 had died trying to save it.
Park officials struggled to remove the elephant carcasses to avoid contaminating water downstream. Some of them had to be hospitalised after being overwhelmed by the ammonia emitted by the rotting flesh, says Chananya.
The vet helped the herd's remaining two elephants survive. By strategically placing calorie-rich banana stems injected with glucose in the forest, she nourished the exhausted elephants enough for them to travel safely onward.
Her job is not without danger. This past week alone, two park rangers were killed from encounters with wild elephants.
One was killed on Tuesday in Chanthaburi province after being sent to deal with a herd of six elephants eating the crop in a longan plantation. On Sunday, another ranger died while trying to chase away an elephant that had been raiding a village in Prachin Buri every night for food.
Such human-elephant encounters are increasing because of rapid development in Thailand that has led to both the loss and fragmentation of wildlife habitats, pushing wild elephants towards human settlements, says Mr Bhichet Noonto, a researcher at the Human Elephant Voices network, which tries to mitigate human-elephant conflict.
It is something that Ms Chananya is well-equipped for, having honed her love for wildlife from young by following her aunt, a wildlife researcher, on field trips.
She stresses, however, this is very much about loving from a distance. Jungle animals are not "cute" and cannot be tamed, she says, and thinking otherwise would fuel demand for wildlife trafficking. "We should feel more proud to see the animal in the forest, than to have it as your pet."
At the DNP, Chananya is technically on duty during office hours, but in reality is almost always on call. "Holidays? Yes, I get them, when people don't call for help," she says.
It was during a public holiday in July, for example, that the elephant calf fell into the manhole. She was at home in Pathum Thani province - over an hour's drive from Nakhon Nayok - when she was alerted at 5am. Within one hour, she had sped her way to Nakhon Nayok, rallying rescuers and devising a strategy along the way.
Before joining the DNP six years ago, Ms Chananya worked for a company selling livestock medicine. During her holidays at that time, she backpacked her way through 18 countries, including Singapore.
"Now, I don't go anywhere. The furthest I go is Pattaya," she says with a laugh, referring to the coastal city about 21/2 hours' drive from Prachin Buri.
"I am afraid that if something happens, I cannot make it back in time. We don't have enough vets. If we deploy vets that are stationed elsewhere, they may be too far away."
To her, that's hardly a sacrifice.
"I love this job. It is exhausting and I may be discouraged and I may complain. But even if I try to run away, I know I will come straight back whenever they need help," she says. - The Straits Times/ANN
