Elephant Village

07/12/2022

Elephant Village Sanctuary

Elephant Village is an elephant sanctuary and tourist destination in Luang Prabang, Laos. We rescue elephants from the dangerous logging industry in Laos.

06/05/2019

Last June, the filming of the current season's popular American TV show, the "Amazing Race" began. The second leg featured a stop in Luang Prabang, where contestants had to learn the Lao alphabet, prepare grilled fish, and of course, find their way to Elephant Village, where they had one-on-one experiences navigating their own elephant across the river mahout style.

Elephant Village does not often participate in TV shows like these but we felt it was necessary to bring attention to the sensitive and often misunderstood topic of elephant tourism in Laos to the millions of viewers who watch the show in hopes that it will inspire people to learn more and see that elephant tourism is not always the negative portrayal that many media outlets and animal rights activists make it out to be.

When you look at the political landscape in Laos and what it means for elephants to be in the wild, you would see that responsible tourism is the only sustainable way for them to exist. The important thing is maintaining a welfare standard that benefits the elephants in every possible way. Elephant Village is always looking for ways to improve the quality of life for our herd of elephants.

12/04/2019

Elephants need sizeable living space in the jungle in order to be able to forage for enough food and socialize with other elephants. This is important because Asian elephants spend 16 to 19 hours a day eating. If their living space is too small the natural vegetation will run out before it has the opportunity to grow back. A vast living area means elephants can rotate through different areas of the jungle without worrying the food will run out.

Fortunately, Elephant Village has a total of 50 hectares (124 acres) of land in Ban Xienglom to accommodate our herd. This large plot of land allows the herd to be able to forage for sufficient amounts of food in the jungle where they spend 17 hours a day. The other seven hours are spent at Elephant Village camp, during which the elephants are provided with a diet of locally grown seasonal produce to supplement their jungle diet.

04/03/2019

Mahouts or 'Khuan Xang' in the Lao language are elephant keepers or caretakers. This profession was once highly esteemed because their job was to care for the living symbol of Lan Xang or 'Land of a Million Elephants', which was Laos' ancient name.

These days, mahouts are often misunderstood and tend to have a bad reputation because of the negative portrayal by mainstream media as people who abuse and force elephants to do things they do not want to do. This of course is far from the truth because true mahouts consider their elephant companions as a member of the family.

To dispel the misconceptions associated with mahouts, Elephant Village is working with GIZ and Travelife to produce a documentary that will help people better understand and appreciate Laos' elephant caretakers.

02/03/2019

Over the last five years or so, elephant tourism has received some overwhelmingly negative press due to the vocal contention from animal rights and animal protection organizations. Elephant camps and the elephants whose livelihoods depend on them have suffered tremendously because of this.

Despite what many animal protection organizations may counterargue, elephant tourism with emphasis on elephant welfare while limiting the different stressors on the elephants is not only sustainable but offers the best possible life for elephants in Laos.

For the past five years, Elephant Village has been working to improve the quality of life for the elephants under our care. For example, we only allow one guest to sit on top of an elephant at a time and without the traditional seats called howdahs. We also moderate the time guests can get on or bath elephants so each elephant gets just enough physical exercise and cleansing to stay healthy. Of course, our mahouts are trained to control elephants with (loud) words and not with bullhooks or other objects.

If there was a defin­it­ive point to come out of the ses­sion on ele­phant tour­ism at the 2019 Glob­al Sus­tain­able Tour­ism Coun­cil (GSTC) Asia-Pacific Sus­tain­able Tour­ism Con­fer­ence today in Chi­ang Mai, it would be that there are no defin­it­ive points. Exactly what con....

18/02/2019

It is fairly easy to tell the difference between Asian and African elephants based on size alone, but what are some of the other key differences?

28/01/2019

A couple of guests did our Two Day Mahout Experience and decided they wanted to get married so we arranged an impromptu Lao traditional wedding ceremony for them. It was a small ceremony for sure, consisting of the groom and bride, two of their friends, a dozen Elephant Village staff, and some elders from the village, but the newlyweds insisted that it was the best, most memorable wedding they could have asked for!

23/01/2019

We would like to share this email we received from an Elephant Village guest:

"My name is Gillian Marshall and I am from Toronto, Canada.

I visited Elephant Village in March 2018 with my family and we loved our experience at the sanctuary. I love that Elephant Village gives rescued elephants a safe home where they are cared for by professionals and free from abusive work. I think the work you guys are doing is amazing.

I decided I wanted to help raise money for the elephants of Laos through designing T-shirts and selling them to friends and family, and at local markets in Toronto.
Here is the link where you will find my blog post about the T-shirts I have designed:
https://curatedflair.com/elephant-project/

In total, I have raised $800 that I want to donate to Elephant Village in Luang Prabang, Laos."

The Elephant Village family would like to send our sincerest THANK YOU to Gillian for putting in the effort to raise money that will now go toward purchasing food, vitamins and medicine for our elephants.

If you would like to contribute please visit her blog and purchase a T-shirt!

Laos was once the Land of a Million Elephants, but is now home to less than 500 in the wild. Help save and protect the elephants of Laos, one T-shirt at a time.

12/01/2019

It's estimated that about 90% of the captive elephant population in Laos is used to haul logs in the logging industry. You don't have to go far to see evidence of this. We were on our way back from Tad Sae Waterfall and spotted an elephant pulling logs on the riverbank.