Through innovative programmes in cooperation with the Thai Elephant Conservation Centre and support from the Minor Group and the Four Seasons Tent Camp, the Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation (GTAEF) is able to offer homes to elephants who have been rescued off the streets and tourist resorts in Thailand.

Nong Lynchee herself was born in March or April this year in a camp in Pattaya, says John Roberts, Anantara Resort's elephant director. Her mother, originally from Ban Ta Klang in Isaan, was not able to give rides after giving birth, and the camp owner told the owner of the elephants to take them out on the streets to beg or take them home.

There wasn't much of a future for the three. One solution, if you could call it that, would have been to wait for a year and then take Nong Lynchee away from her mother. Plenty of people would have bought the baby, who was (and is) cute enough to attract tourists and their wallets.

One year, however, is two years too early for such a separation, says Roberts.

"If done carefully, a baby can now be split prematurely and survive, but no one knows the effects that the lack of mother's milk and mother's care will have on this elephant after five, 10, 15 or 20 years when she's fully grown," he says.

When the people of the foundation heard about the situation, they agreed to take in both elephants and even give their mahout a job so the mother and baby could be kept together for at least the natural term of lactation.

In an innovative programme, GTAEF works out agreements with elephants' owners to "rent" the animals for a specified period, training both the elephants and the mahouts for work that would be safer than life on city streets.

Not all the elephants at the camp have been on the streets, though. Pang Boun Na, for instance, was a breeding and tourist camp elephant for a long time and also spent some time as an "illegal immigrant worker", logging in the Burmese forests. She was then rented by a Japanese family in Chiang Mai to produce and raise a calf, which is still with them.

This calf isn't her only baby. Boun Na has given birth to four others, two of whom died from the neglect of a previous mahout.

Nong Lynchee, her mama and her mahout, however, have no worries now. The Britain-registered charity Elephant Family added the two elephants to an auction that was held in front of Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall. Funds were raised for GTAEF to buy both the mother and baby, ensuring that the little family will stay together indefinitely.

"They're guaranteed a good life up here in the Anantara forest," promises Roberts.

For more information, check out www.helpingelephants.org.

Questions about your pets? Fax (02) 751 4446 or e-mail laurie@nation-group.com.

By Laurie Rosenthal