by This is the touching moment a Rᴇsᴄᴜᴇᴅ elephant is welcomed by a herd at a sanctuary in Thailand. Completely ʙʟɪɴᴅ, the 30-year-old elephant was Rᴇsᴄᴜᴇᴅ from a circus and brought at the Elephant Nature Park in Chiang Mai where is about to met her new herd for the very first time. The moving scene was captured on camera!
Ploy Thong’s story is the saddest, but it ended happily when she was Rᴇsᴄᴜᴇᴅ by volunteers from the Sᴀᴠᴇ Elephant Foundation. The gentle giant has been carrying tourists on her back through the streets of Thailand’s Pattaya district for decades.
All of this was done against her consent. Thankfully, all of this is in the past now that Ploy Thong is a resident of this compassionate sanctuary.
“Both eyes ʙʟɪɴᴅ, she transported tourists every day,” staff from the Sᴀᴠᴇ Elephant Foundation said. “Every day she was saddled early, and carried riders until the sun set. She used her trunk to sniff the way while the tourist rode on her back. But her journey to freedom begins.”
Shortly after her arrival, one scene, in particular, was beautiful to behold – the moment the herd at the sanctuary welcomes the resident. Completely ʙʟɪɴᴅ, Ploy Thong started to send low vibration, in order to let the rest of the elephants know of her presence. What happens next is one of the most emotional scenes we have ever seen!
The entire herd approaches to give the Rᴇsᴄᴜᴇᴅ elephant a bit of their endless compassion. From the first moment at the sanctuary, Chiang Mai learned that she will be loved and protected for the rest of her days.
“Elephants are well-known for their intelligence, close family ties and social complexity, and they remember for years other individuals and places,” an Elephant expert wrote.
“They live in a fluid fission-fusion society with relationships radiating out from the mother-offspring bond through families, bond groups, clans, independent males and beyond to strangers.”
