Some Good News: 78 Elephants Freed From a Thailand Park

Here's some news that will brighten your day: 78 elephants were freed for the first time from a Thailand Park. Previously, these 78 elephants living at Maesa Elephant Camp in Chiang Ma, Thailand were forced to wear uncomfortable seats to give tourists rides as well as perform tricks.

The owner of the park, Anchalee Kalampichit, closed it down on March 23rd after admission numbers reached an all-time low. On a normal day, hundreds of tourists would have flooded the park to see the elephants. With the coronavirus restrictions and travel bans, the park averaged just 20 visitors a day, not enough to keep the place going.

Kalampichit told CNN, she would take the opportunity to revamp the park and let the 78 elephants on-site roam freely for the first time within the safety of the park grounds.

After visiting an Elephant Nature Park, a sanctuary in northern Thailand, Kalampichit saw how happy elephants were free and decided to shift the park's focus to educating the public about elephants rather than making them show animals or rides for humans. The global pandemic finally prompted her to put her long-awaited plan into motion.

Elephant sanctuaries the world over are the saving grace for these playful, kind and intelligent animals. Tennesse is home to one of the best safe havens in the US, The Elephant Sanctuary, which rehabs and cares for elephants who were once in circuses and zoos across the country. Of course, the best place for elephants is to be running in the wild, in Africa, India, or their natural habitat, where they are born free and live free, but sanctuaries are the next best thing.