Mother Elephant Is Overcome With Emotion When Reunited With Daughter After 3 Years Apart
A mother elephant and her daughter had an emotional reunion at the Elephant Nature Park, a ʀᴇsᴄᴜᴇ and rehabilitation center in Thailand, after being separated for nearly three years by the tourism industry. The stunning event was captured on camera, and it demonstrates elephants’ strong emotional bonds with one another!
MeBai, a female Asian elephant who was just 3 years old was separated from her mother, Mae Yui and a half years old and forced to carry visitors on her back through the streets of Thailand — a fate shared by hundreds of Asian elephants. MeBai continued to live this wretched existence for about three years, which had a significant influence on her health.
She began ʟᴏsɪɴɢ weight and had to stop working due to her failing health, so her owner eventually decided to move her to the “Pamper A Pachyderm” program at the Elephant Nature Park in northern Thailand’s Chiang Mai province.
“When she first arrived, she was quite nervous and we took care to feed her well until she was healthy again,” Elephant Nature Park founder Sangduen “Lek” Chailert writes in a blog post about the rescue. “We also began to search what had become of her mother.”
Chailert soon discovered Mae Yui was working at another tourist camp more than 60 miles away, so she contacted that camp’s owner about setting up a reunion. He agreed, and a team of caretakers took MeBai on a four-day hike to see her mother for the first time in years.
The emotional moment the pair were reunited was captured on camera. It shows the elephants caressing each other with their trunks and flapping their ears – seemingly in joy – after spending an uncertain half an hour together where the keepers thought they may be worried about being separated again.
The pair will remain at the sanctuary together, until they’ll be ready to return where they belong:in the wild. “The Elephant Nature Park are working together to rehabilitate Mae Yui and Me-Bai so that they can return to the wild and live free,” the sanctuary wrote.
Heartwrenchingly beautiful!!!!!!
To give them the love and the chance of freedom together is a wonderful thing to do
I hope that they spend many Happy years together
Separating animals like elephants that live in familie groups is wrong
Just so that some tourists can ride on its Back
humans can sure be horrible when it involves $$$. 🙁
So happy for them ?
So grateful that this had a happy ending. What a moving reunion!! Thank you!!
Such good news this reunion so may those responsible for this kind act be blessed to do more?
It’s about time humans realised how intelligent all animals are, and started treating them with respect, even if they cannot love them.
But I do remember reading an article about ducks. It stated, ‘domestically’ raised ducks averaged five years of age, but randomly sampled ‘wild’ ducks averaged two years of age? I am not disregarding sampling errors or other factors, but “sometimes, it ain’t all bad?”
Great story , Lek has acompliched another beautiful reunion , mother and child are happy again , i hope for the rest of their lives ! You gave so many elephants their dignaty back , your doing fantastic work there in Chiang Mai Miss Chailert ? .
But one thing , they wrote they where going to release mother and child in the wild again !? Is that possible afther they stayed so long under human captivety ? Would be great , but i wander if they can make it in the wild by themselve ! Warm greetings
People say God isn’t real. Out of all the elephants in Thailand, these two; mother & daughter (by record keeping), but even without records, they recognize each other’s relationship. That’s a very powerful instinct, as elephants all look alike! GOD did that! He blessed His Creation.
They are such an amazing animal
So glad people are finally realizing that animals have family bonds & love for each other as well. Thank you. Keep up the good work.
This is so touching ? , Thank You to all who participated in this beautiful, kind, treasured deed..
I hope they were left in the wild, Mother looks awfully thin!! Hope more Good Deeds ? happen?????
The chance at freedom is wonderful– but will the two be able to survive in the wild- and will they be able to join an existing herd??
Concerned they are not considering them being captive so long and not finding THIR herd?
I am happy they will eventually be ok to live in the wild again, but hope they will cope after being in captivity for years, also hope they won’t get captured again to go back to what they were rescued from!!
Thank you for making it a priority to save this elephant and reunite it with family. It amazes me how you can trace were the herd is separated and sold. Thank you again!! Let’s hope more elephants can be saved.
Oh, how I wish that could happen – all over the world!
So Awesome
No words can express the feelings of joy for this reunion. One tiny drop of hope in a sea of so much pain and greed and suffering. What we have done to the elephants has ripped the heart and soul of humanity.