Elephants in Cambodia at Airavata
Ikeo: the sweet mom
Ikeo is the only female of Airavata, she was born in captivity in the village of Samot Krom in Ratanakiri in 1982. Her grandmother had been captured and then mated with a wild elephant, her mother was mated in the same way.
At the age of two, Ikeo was hidden in the forest by her owner: her mother had just been killed by Vietnamese soldiers for her defenses.
It was not until she was seven years old, when the soldiers left, that she left the forest to work in logging, a very hard job that involved transporting heavy loads of wood, sometimes as far as Vietnam.
With the rapid disappearance of the forest, its owners have decided to hand it over to us.
She gave birth to our adorable baby elephant on December 25, 2021 whom we named Noelle!
Bokva: the gigantic male
Bokva is Cambodia's largest male domestic elephant, born in captivity in 1980. His mother was captured at Seda in the forest, and his father was wild.
During its first three years, Bokva lived hidden by its owner, far from the Vietnamese soldiers who requisitioned these animals.
Bokva then worked in the transport of light goods, rice, or for hunting. This work, which is not very tiring, explains his excellent state of health today.
On the death of its owner, it was sold, the family not wanting to take care of it.
Noelle: the miracle baby elephant
Born on December 25, 2021, Noelle is the first baby elephant born in Cambodia in a reserve for more than 30 years!
This real miracle is the result of the relationship between our gigantic male Bokva and our female Ikeo.
For the story, Ikeo is normally too old to give birth to a baby elephant, so our team on site had abandoned a possible union project. But Ikeo surprised us all and managed to create its adorable baby elephant Noelle!
This miracle was such big news that the team decided to name her Noelle, because of her birth date of December 25.
Noëlle is a beacon of hope for the region's Asian elephant population as there are only 500 Asian elephants left in all of Cambodia.
Kamsen: the player
Born in 1976, Kamsen was the object of all the attention of his former mahout. To prevent attempts to buy it to seduce the other members of the family, owners with him of the elephant, the man had passed Kamsen off as dangerous.
It had worked very well until the day he killed himself after a family argument...
Today, wishing to honor the memory of this man as much as to protect the animal, we have decided that he will have happy days in his native province. Kamsen is unfortunately blind in one eye but he manages on his own most of the time!