Makam's a Mum! (time to tire a Thai stork!)
Two truths of elephant reproduction, elephant pregnancies are notoriously fickle things and every mahout always believes his elephant is pregnant; however, aside from the mating, there is no way in Thailand for anyone to guarantee pregnancy, the best method available is to monitor blood hormone levels from before mating all the way through to almost the birth - and even that's fallible.
Even if pregnancy can be confirmed the birth is complex and an amazingly fragile thing pops into the world, on the way causing pain to the world's strongest and largest land mammal. It is not uncommon for first time Mums to kill the baby, there are so many things that can go wrong that it is always a miracle when they go right.
So given that we have little run on but gut feeling, extraordinarily good advisers in Lord and his family, and that I have a policy not to share the downs of my up and down world you'll have to excuse me that I didn't tell you that we trusted our guts about Makam and took her off work at the end of July, keeping her in the 'close watch' area behind camp.
Our guts have been rewarded, at about 3am yesterday morning Pang Makam, with, it seems, Lynchee in attendance, gave birth to a not-quite-bouncing-yet baby girl a metre tall and just over that at the girth, Lung Lord reckons she's about 90kgs.
Those of you who've tried to climb onto Makam will know that she's a long legged super model of an elephant and by the time I got the call at six am a very tired little baby was still trying to work out how to reach her Mum's teats.
There then followed what is now a comedy of errors during which us first time elephant midwives tried everything from steps, ladders, our knees to persuade the smallest one to suckle, Makam, still tired and a bit fractious kept moving away from all the scaffolding we built for the baby while Uncles sat on their haunches (as they do) and said mai pen rai.
Of course, the old boys who've seen everything at least once and most things twice and were correct, by the time I returned from the morning meeting she was suckling, albeit with difficulty and sometimes with a little help from us but only supporting the head until the neck gets strong.
So, no doubt there will be more news as time goes on, but for now if we were busy before we're twice as busy now (mainly busy staring in wonder), we're not out of the woods yet and we'll have to alter our behaviours a little bit (Aoy says that this should be good practice). I'll try and keep the still camera trained on them during the daytime, but that may prove difficult as we're going to ask them to move around a bit - the main cam should pick them up though in low resolution!
I'll leave you with some photos - of Makam and Pang No-name-yet (though we have some front runners)...
...first light and who are all these not-mummies...
...proud Mum!
...look, it's just there, if you stretch you can reach it!
...finally, suckling, with a little help from an equally proud (and spellbound) father.
PS. To answer Shirley's question of a while ago definitively, there is a large placenta that is expelled 2 or 3 hours after the birth and is not eaten by the mother - the Surin guys have taken it away to smoke dry and be made into herbal medicine.
Even if pregnancy can be confirmed the birth is complex and an amazingly fragile thing pops into the world, on the way causing pain to the world's strongest and largest land mammal. It is not uncommon for first time Mums to kill the baby, there are so many things that can go wrong that it is always a miracle when they go right.
So given that we have little run on but gut feeling, extraordinarily good advisers in Lord and his family, and that I have a policy not to share the downs of my up and down world you'll have to excuse me that I didn't tell you that we trusted our guts about Makam and took her off work at the end of July, keeping her in the 'close watch' area behind camp.
Our guts have been rewarded, at about 3am yesterday morning Pang Makam, with, it seems, Lynchee in attendance, gave birth to a not-quite-bouncing-yet baby girl a metre tall and just over that at the girth, Lung Lord reckons she's about 90kgs.
Those of you who've tried to climb onto Makam will know that she's a long legged super model of an elephant and by the time I got the call at six am a very tired little baby was still trying to work out how to reach her Mum's teats.
There then followed what is now a comedy of errors during which us first time elephant midwives tried everything from steps, ladders, our knees to persuade the smallest one to suckle, Makam, still tired and a bit fractious kept moving away from all the scaffolding we built for the baby while Uncles sat on their haunches (as they do) and said mai pen rai.
Of course, the old boys who've seen everything at least once and most things twice and were correct, by the time I returned from the morning meeting she was suckling, albeit with difficulty and sometimes with a little help from us but only supporting the head until the neck gets strong.
So, no doubt there will be more news as time goes on, but for now if we were busy before we're twice as busy now (mainly busy staring in wonder), we're not out of the woods yet and we'll have to alter our behaviours a little bit (Aoy says that this should be good practice). I'll try and keep the still camera trained on them during the daytime, but that may prove difficult as we're going to ask them to move around a bit - the main cam should pick them up though in low resolution!
I'll leave you with some photos - of Makam and Pang No-name-yet (though we have some front runners)...
...first light and who are all these not-mummies...
...proud Mum!
...look, it's just there, if you stretch you can reach it!
...finally, suckling, with a little help from an equally proud (and spellbound) father.
PS. To answer Shirley's question of a while ago definitively, there is a large placenta that is expelled 2 or 3 hours after the birth and is not eaten by the mother - the Surin guys have taken it away to smoke dry and be made into herbal medicine.
Wow!!!!! Made my day .Great news .Perry and Carolyn.
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Well done Pang Makam. We were trying to make out what John and Mark were doing yesterday when we watched them intermittently changing position on the still camera, whilst apparently contemplating a very small ele. Now we know!
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...here's one of you and the new baby.
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Great photo Aoy, proud Dad or proud Granddad? patting the new arrival!
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It's good thing born at anantara , so today i come to check a health of the elephant and it very good both. I want few day to complete my examination and will report to all of you
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