by Cartoon, the elephant, has found the best way to relieve itching was to rub her whole body against a tree. The 58-year-old Asian elephant scratched thick mud on his body and legs before rubbing his head against a tree branch in a touching video.
Fiona Hard.ie filmed the scene at the new Samui Elephant Sanctuary in Koh Samui, Southern Thailand. She used a stick behind her ear, rubbing her jaw against the bark to clean herself. 58-year-old man, the mud-covered elephant playfully scratched her whole body against the trunk of a tree
Cartoon lifted her left front leg to scratch her armpit before sliding her whole body down the tree to get her back leg. She scratched her leg before turning and starting to rub behind her right ear. Clearly enjoying herself with her mouth open, she scratched her head up and down. She then walked over to the camera, rubbing her head against a tree branch while scratching her back leg.
The cartoon begins the scratching process by lifting her front leg to relieve the itch in her arm. She slid her entire body down the trunk before doing the same with her hind legs, making sure not to miss a single point.
Australian-born Fiona, who now lives in Hong Kong, said: “For me, beyond feeling pure fun, it’s really thinking about how Cartoon feels. ‘I believe elephants have the brains that exist to understand their plight. I love that she can just be an elephant, how it should be.” The cartoon was rescued from a working life riding horses for tourists and will live comfortably in retirement at Sanctuary, with Asian elephants likely to live to 80 years old.
Australian-born Fiona Hard.ie, now living in Hong Kong, shot the video and said she enjoyed watching Cartoon act naturally. Fiona runs the social media platform Elephant Stories with Fiona, a Facebook page ‘dedicated to the love of elephants as sentientʙᴇɪɴɢs.
She said: ‘I love this video. It gives me the opportunity to witness natural behavior by observing them, such as watching them scratch. Every elephant has a story. I want to share this in the hope that we can all understand more about these sentient animals.
