Thailand-Elephant Research Project

Sawatdee Kaa

"Sawatdee Kaa"...means "hello" in Thai.  "You want me to put my hand up where?"  Alright then, "sawatdee kaa" elephant rear end.  It's not something you say every day.  I was performing a physical exam and about to get a temperature on a 13 foot tall, 12,000 pound elephant.  Rectal temperature from a dog, easy.  Rectal temperature from a cat, a little trickier, but check.  Rectal temperature from an elephant?  That's a whole different ball game.  You can't use a stool because elephants are smart.  They'll just move away from the stool just as you're about to get what you need.  And you can't quite implore your technicians to help you "hold" your patient down whilst you go for their rear end.  Reality check, 12,000 pound elephant would be doing more of the "holding down" than we ever would.  My poor animal patients.  I don't blame them for shaking every time they see someone in a white coat.  That white coat is about to either give them a shot, chop something off, sew something up, force a pill down their throat, or give another important "tutoring (neutering)" lesson.  But I had my shoulder-length glove on, a senior in veterinary school (plenty experienced right?), grabbing Boonma's tail, and determined that this elephant was NOT going to make a fool out of me.  Ha, temperature taking in progress when Boonma decided she'd just dump a load on me right then and there.  "Look-out, look-out, poo is coming!"...I shouted as I removed my hand from Boonma's back-side making sure not to lose the thermometer whilst getting splattered by Boonma's revenge thinking to myself... "Why hasn't someone invented the elephant ear thermometer yet"?  No fool there.  Elephant ear thermometer, that's my next project.

I was in the Golden Triangle of Thailand performing an elephant and buffalo endoparasite research project during my final clinical year as a senior in veterinary school for my school St. George's University (SGU).  As the elephants and buffalo had been sharing a common grazing area for the past 6 years, I was testing for endoparasite species crossover and potential zoonoses.  SGU was once again encouraging me to spread my research wings and was helping to finance the project.  There's no way I could afford these extravagant adventures on a student loan budget, but with SGU's help, all things were possible.  Endoparasite research project, code for poop collector.  "36.4 degrees Celsius I announced".  Phew, that was about right.  I wasn't going to have to repeat that fun exercise again.  "Well, did you get your fecal sample for the project?" Dr. Cherry asked me.  Funny.  Yeah, I just scraped it off my shoulder and put it in the plastic bag ready to be analyzed.  At least I'd picked an animal where there'd be no shortage of sample material.  The mahouts even fondly referred to me as "Poo Lady".  A mahout is an elephant trainer that uses their feet and verbal commands to drive an elephant.  I learned how to be a mahout whilst performing my project there.  And the baby elephants, who like to eat poo, were my new best friends as their trunks wiggled and squirmed around to my pockets filled with my samples in plastic bags trying desperately to get a snack.  I was at an elephant camp in the jungle where tourists could come to the Golden Triangle and learn about the species and not purchase opium.  The area used to be known for its Opium Trade.  "Yep, I got the sample Dr. Cherry".  "Ok good, now we need to boil water."  Boil water?  "Yes, there's no saturated salt solution for the fecal egg flotation test so we need to make it by hand."  Honestly, why hadn't I just stayed in the comfort of the air-conditioned lab in Grenada and picked some simple project to do?  But that's the beauty of research in the field.  You can plan and prepare all you want, but things will absolutely NOT go as according to plan.  You have to be creative and come up with alternative methods and solutions.  So I found myself sitting on a stone next to a real-wood log fire, holding a pot stirring salt and water together like Laura Ingalls.  Two hours later with plenty of saturated salt solution made, we were headed out for another 2 hour drive to a laboratory that had a microscope where we could analyze the samples.  Yes, about 2 hours, how ridiculous.  I still couldn't believe the camp didn't have a microscope.  Project 2, finance a microscope for their camp just as soon as I graduated, invented the elephant ear thermometer, and got a salary.

"Look-out, that elephant's going to spray you!"...a mahout shouted at me as I found myself bathing in the Mekong River with 10 elephants and their respective mahouts.  It was actually my favorite activity to do in Thailand, well, in the afternoon when it was a bit warmer anyhow.  Every morning we went to the jungle to collect the elephants, let them bathe in the River (me skipping out on this early morning freezing cold wake-up call), and rode them to the camp where various veterinary and tourist activities took place.  Then in the evenings we rode the elephants back to the field to play a quick game of elephant polo, bathe them in the Mekong River, and then return them to their sleeping areas in the jungle.  Elephant Polo, another interesting activity, little bit bigger deal than horse polo.  And if you think shaving your legs standing in the shower is tricky, try standing on an elephant as it flips over ventral to wash its back off.  But it's a BLAST.  It's kind of like the cartoon where Goofy is running on a tree log that just keeps spinning whilst going down Niagara Falls. 

"Knock-knock, we're coming in!"  "Ahhh, what? Hold on!"...I screamed as I grabbed my towel from the rack, fire alarm blaring, and ran to open my hotel room door.  I had lucked out on this research project and actually got to stay in a hotel room vs. a tent in the African desert.  Although I did like my African animal audiences of impalas and wildebeests to be truthful.  "Where's the fire?  Didn't you hear that screeching alarm?"  "No, oh no, it must be from my hot shower" I explained to the hotel manager, assistant manager, support staff, and cleaning attendant, all male, wrapped in a too small white towel dripping with water, steam rising off my shoulders (further evidence that my shower might have been just a little too hot), and red more from embarrassment  than heat.  "I'm so sorry; I was just taking a shower and didn't mean to set off the fire alarm that could be heard throughout the entire wooden hotel."  "Don't you remember us telling you at check in to shower with the sliding door shut?"  "Ummm, yeah, I kind of remember something about that, sorry."  "Alright, Miss, but PLEASE remember to shut the sliding door when bathing, this is a wooden hotel, and we take fire alarms quite seriously here."  What was with me and my showers and always ending up with an audience?  You can dress me up, but you can't take me out.  They should have just set up a tent on the edge of the Mekong River for me amidst the elephants and buffalo vs. a nice hotel room.  I feel more at home there anywhere.  And apart from that one shower blunder, being called the "Poo Lady", getting covered in Boonma's revenge, and dodging rolling elephants, the rest of the trip and project was smooth sailing without any further embarrassment.  I found important endoparasite crossover species, made useful suggestions to the camp, and wrote a paper to be published in a scientific journal.  The glorifying parts of veterinary medicine.  Sometimes you get covered in poo, but you always learn and definitely get an exciting adventure along the way.