These abscesses are huge.
I mean, they make grapefruits look small,
you can feel the puss inside them too.
So it's important we get as much puss out of those as we can.
All these abscesses is that they all arise from the same cause.
This hard life, these elephants have had to lead.
The elephant is such a strong symbol of Thailand.
Yet the reality of the elephant’s plight here is anything but strong.
There are only 2200 left in the wild.
We've got one elephant called Bunyan.
She's an old lady.
"She needs some some treatment for her abscesses."
She’s got half a dozen abscesses over her body.
And maybe you could help and
check on her and help to clean it out.
All the glamourous jobs right? Yep, only for you.
Special jobs.
I've done plenty of abscesses in dogs and cats,
"but I get the feeling with an elephant it might be entirely different."
At the Wildlife Friends Foundation in Thailand,
Chris is helping out the boss Edwin Wiek.
That's an abscess there.
Yeah, that's one of the abscesses that needs treatment.
"Nine rescue elephants are now permanent residents at the centre"
"and most have chronic long term health issues."
"She's been used heavily in the tourism industry"
and before that in the logging industry.
So she has had these abscesses probably
years before she was rescued.
She had about triple amount of abscesses
when she was brought in.
But the treatment has been taking over two years now.
So it's a matter of cleaning really well every other day.
And that's why I’m here.
To treat a girl this size
it's going to take a team effort.
"So we got some volunteers, two girls from Australia, one"
from Canada, and they're going to help you.
So you guys can help? Band together a bit of Aussie
spirit and triumph over the Dutchman here.
About time.
These abscesses are huge.
I mean, they make grapefruits look small
and you can feel the puss inside side of them too.
So it's important we get as much puss out of those
as we can.
"Thailand has about 2200 elephants in the wild"
"and approximately two and a half thousand in captivity."
The problem is that captive elephants
are placed under the livestock law
"so they can be bought and sold just like a cow, a horse or a buffalo."
But we have no animal welfare laws.
"So the treatment of elephants in captivity is hard to control."
And that's one of our biggest problems.
So she got a favorite in there? Amoungst the corn, the pineapple.
She really likes the corn. Yeah. Yep.
"Elephants are being exploited, working long hours,"
going through heavy training sessions
with a lot of cruelty.
I think that's one of the biggest problems
"we really have when it comes to animal welfare."
It's not only the local tourism industry
now demanding for these elephants.
"Even China, as a growing nation, now wants these elephants."
And, you know, when there's a demand
"and there's a lack of enforcement there's going to be illegal trade."
That is deep. Yep. Huge.
"The really hard thing to accept about all these abscesses"
is that they all arise from the same cause.
"This hard life, these elephants have had to lead. Here we go."
The worry with Buwa, is given her history in logging
and in tourism that perhaps mahouts
may have hit her with sticks.
"Those little sticks break the skin, bacteria get underneath the skin"
and from there set up infections.
Now we've got it clean.
The plan is to try to get as much of this
anti-biotic cream up there as we can.
And then,
with any luck, this might just stay in there.
Just make sure that that environment in there,
which is now sterile,
stays as close to that as possible.
All right, next one.
There we go. Here’s the leg.
It’s almost like she knows I'm out there somewhere and
just isn't quite sure where,
so just starts kicking in all directions.
"While this is an uncomfortable thing for Buwa to go through,"
it's just such a small part of her day.
The rest of her
day is filled up with play, filled up with food and filled up with love.
And it's miles away from her old life.
I think after we've had a bath together
and I've tended to your wounds,
we now know each other
quite well.
So it only makes sense that I would feed you as well.
Yeah.
Beautiful.
Going slow for change.
We're in the forest area and
"it wouldn't surprise me if we encounter some heavy traffic."
After releasing the rogue monkey,
Chris and Edwin are heading back to the rescue center.
As we're driving along, Edwin's going quite slow
and has this smirk on his face.
I know something's up.
"Look, there's an elephant here right next to the village."
All of a sudden, I see exactly why Edwin's on the go slow.
"A big male elephant up here, just on the side of the road."
And you've got to realise that this is not
one of the elephants at our rescue centre.
This is a wild one.
"And he could pick this car up if he wants to,"
"could push it over to the side. He could do anything he likes."
There was another one just behind there in the bushes as well.
Incredible to see them this close when they’re wild
I mean, you’re used to seeing elephants in zoos and
appreciating their size and their majesty.
But when he's here and now just turning, just have a look here.
That would be a freak out.
There's more there.
Yeah.
Look at him.
How he impressive kind of, walking.
And I guess this is really what it's all about for you though Edwin, isn’t it?
Actually seeing the animals in the wild and rescuing them is great,
but to see them not needing rescuing
must be even more special.
Yeah, it is great.
It's great to see them in the wild.
It's a pity that they're along the road.
In Thailand,
Chris and Wildlife Warrior Edwin Wiek
have encountered a daily problem.
There's a road going right through the forest.
"It's actually quite a busy road and people are throwing"
"food out of their cars, feeding the elephants over there."
"This has changed behaviour of the elephants."
The elephants are actually waiting for food
now instead of foraging themselves.
Look at her.
She's in protection mode, the tail up.
You see the tail being higher up.
"And then when she looked at us, the ears wide open like that."
This kind of roadblock is not easy
"to be ignored by people, even with a large car."
"These elephants can stop you and they can do"
"a lot of damage to your car or your property"
or if you're on a motorbike, to you.
"Motorcycle riders can just get swiped off their bikes."
Only a few weeks ago,
"a monk was killed when he went out to try to feed one of the elephants."
It's dangerous.
You don't know that. He might not even wanted to kill someone.
They don't know their own strength.
And, you know, that's one of the problems
we face here with these elephants.
And they get so close to people so often they lose respect
and thousands of people pass through
this road every day, up and down.
And that's one of the problems, you see.
Here,
they're starting
some kind of fencing to stop the elephants coming out of the jungle,
but it ain't going to stop them.
"Without electrical fencing, that ain't going to work."
The elephant is such a strong symbol of Thailand.
Yet the reality of the elephant’s plight here is anything but strong.
There are only 2200 left in the wild,
and those, as we've seen here,
are pretty vulnerable.
Everyday in Thailand it's an ongoing struggle to
get the right balance between people and animals.
Edwin’s passion is finding that balance.
I think a very important message is that we should not exploit wildlife.
But it's for tourism in a zoo, a circus
that wildlife needs to be in the wild.
Do you want to have a go at breaking that in half.
I want
it to be possible to close down this place,
that we're not needed anymore.
Unfortunately, that's not going to happen.
There will always be a need for a wildlife rescue centres like ours.
Second best would be to grow in size,
give the animals more space and a better life than they already got.
"The rescue centre here survives entirely on donations."
They get food from some of the local farmers
in return for care of their animals.
"But financially, a lot of the donations come from Australia"
"and from other countries all around the world."
In you go, start scrubbing. What’s this? Get in and you’ll find out.
Are you serious? Yeah.
But this is the quiet time.
For the elephants sure, yeah.
Volunteers’ work is never done.
While the money makes a huge difference.
There's nothing that can replace the care, the time,
"the love shown by the volunteers that work here."
"I actually just wanted to see him with his shirt off."
it's always great to have a vet extra.
You know, it's like tools.
You can't have enough of them.
For that, it's been a great week.
Can you feel that?
I really need all the help I can get.
Any vet, vet nurse, whatever.
We need people to help all these animals.
Oh, yeah.
Good girl.
The first couple of years when I did this work,
I would go on a rescue
"and see an elephant badly treated or see a monkey in a very tiny cage"
and I used to get furious with the owners.
There you go.
I realised after a couple of years that,
that approach doesn't really work.
If I want people to support our work,
I need to make sure they understand
what's wrong and what they've done
wrong without making them feel guilty.
That's amazing.
Yes. I still get angry, but I won't show it.
I'm determined to help the animal
and I always tell myself and the animal in question
"that this is the day everything is going to change."
Everything that happened is over
and from now on, things are only going to get better.
I really think what being here has taught
"me is the fact that when you travel to a
place like Thailand,"
"you have to do it with open eyes and be aware of what you're seeing,"