A Mother Elephant and Her Daughter Reunite After Three Years

An emotional reunion between a mother elephant and her daughter recently took place at the Elephant Nature Park, a rescue and rehabilitation center located in Thailand. This event was captured on camera, and it showcases the powerful emotional bonds that exist between elephants.

The daughter, MeBai, was just three years old when she was separated from her mother, Mae Yui, and forced to carry tourists on her back through the streets of Thailand. This was a fate shared by hundreds of Asian elephants, and MeBai continued to live this wretched existence for about three years, which had a significant impact on her health.

Eventually, MeBai began losing weight and had to stop working due to her failing health. 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 for what had become of her mother.”

Chailert soon discovered that 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’re ready to return where they belong: in the wild. “The Elephant Nature Park is working together to rehabilitate Mae Yui and Me-Bai so that they can return to the wild and live free,” the sanctuary wrote.

This heartwarming reunion showcases the incredible emotional bonds that exist between elephants, and it also highlights the importance of rescue and rehabilitation centers like the Elephant Nature Park. These centers work tirelessly to save elephants from the tourism industry and other harmful practices, allowing them to live out their lives in peace and freedom. It is crucial that we continue to support these efforts and raise awareness about the plight of elephants around the world.

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