Caretaker and founder Lek Chailert of Elephant Nature Park in northern Thailand shares an incredibly strong bond with the elephants who have found peace and safety under her watchful eye. She cares for every animal that comes there and has looked after 9-year-old Indian elephant Faa Mai since she arrived at the sanctuary as a calf. The little elephant was scared and stressed, so Lek would sing to her to calm her down.
Elephants, like humans, enjoy music. They will listen to various instruments or a person singing. Their ability to appreciate music is just one sign of their high intelligence. Elephants Forever sheds some light on why elephants are so incredibly intelligent.
“Part of the reason that elephants possess such a superior level of intelligence is the structure of their brain. Their neocortex is highly convoluted, as it is in humans, apes and some dolphins. This is generally accepted to be an indication of complex intelligence. The cortex is thick and comprises many neurons.” But that’s not all.
“The elephant is one of the few creatures (along with human beings) that is not born with survival instincts but needs to learn these during infancy and adolescence. The brain is specially designed to accomplish this sort of life learning. Elephants and humans have a similar lifespan, and plenty of time, approximately ten years, is allowed for them to learn before they are considered to be independent adults.”
In fact, elephants even possess emotional intelligence.
“The lessons learned include how to feed, use tools and understand their place in their social structure. Elephants’ capacity for memory and emotions is remarkable and is due to the well-developed hippocampus. This is also the area responsible for emotional flashbacks and is the reason that elephants experience Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.”
Back to Faa Mai — she was willing to use her smarts to help out a new, young elephant who had recently arrived at the sanctuary. With her well-developed sensitivity and kindness, she was able to see how stressed the little one was. So, she interrupted a photo op with Lek and some park visitors and began pushing Lek along with her trunk. Lek admitted on her Facebook page that she had no idea where Faa Mai was guiding her.
Lek soon realized that Faa Mai wanted her to sing to the baby elephant and as he calmed, so did the older elephant. The trio shared a beautiful moment as the little one finally drifted off to sleep.
Watch the heartwarming encounter in the video below.
