From The Elephant Valley Project’s website:
Milot came from two villages where she used to carry tourists in one and haul wood in the other. She is blind in her right eye (you must always walk on her left) and covered in old scars that were previously abscesses. When Milot first arrived, she was very resilient and hard minded; scared of people, vehicles and other elephants. However she settled into the project and can now often be found quite close to our base camp.
She prefers to spend most of her time looking for bamboo and is a true mud-artist; she first makes a mud-paste and then covers her entire body in it and then she likes to have a good scratch!
Most of Milot’s problems stem from being overworked by her previous owners who would overload her with which ever goods or people they were tasked to carry. She would have to haul such things as wood, oil, tourists and rice (though not at the same time) and trek between villages and far into the local forest to earn an income.
Unfortunately the bruising caused by the overloading led to some serious elongated abscesses from her poorly fitted and overloaded basket and through the pain she started to become uncooperative. This meant in turn she was hit in increasing quantities as to drive her along.
The majority of captive elephants in Mondulkiri are well looked after. However our main concern is firstly with these elephants that are in a similar situation to which Milot was and get them away from a working environment that is detrimental to their health and future. From there we can try to put them back into their natural habitat at the EVP and secondly still provide a job and a good income to the mahouts who care for them.
Milot came to the project in 2009. She believed to be in her early fifties. Currently, she is having a very hard time digesting her food. You know Milot’s poo when you find it as it is not in a nice firm ball and is instead stringy with loads of undigested food in it. It is likely that one of Milot’s problems is that there is something wrong with her teeth. Elephants get six sets of teeth in their lifetime – one per decade kind of. Milot has gone through hers early which again shows her tough life conditions. Typically, the EVP staff would give an elephant with to tooth condition some antibiotics, but since Milot is additionally exhibiting stomach problems, they are worried that the antibiotics will create more stomach issues. So they are giving her extra vitamins and B12. As of right now, she seems to be doing a bit better. Her life expectancy cannot really be determined as it just depends on how she reacts to the treatment.
Interesting, due to her life traumas, Milot has a very hard time getting along with other elephants. This is why she is usually alone.
On a side note, when I was feeding the pigs, I tried to feed the runt by herself. I thought I would give her a chance to get some food before her piggy siblings. So I locked the group in the pen and just took out the little one. I was amazed to find out that she would not eat and was quite distraught to be separated from her family. So I had to let them all eat together. Apparently, pigs are very social too, just like elephants.
You can all draw your own conclusions from all of this.
Amy Oswalt 