Female elephant “Auan”, from Kanchanaburi Province.

Keeper: Charan Wangpo

Condition: The elephant was heavily pregnant. (She gave birth on the 17^th of February 1999. The bull calf was named Pooh Pah. He passed away of hemorrhagic septicemia when he was three years old.)

Date of admission: 30 December 1998

Auan was a heavily pregnant elephant employed in logging at the temple construction site of Wat Pa Lad in Kanchanaburi Province. The elephant was owned by a monk of the temple where her services were being employed. A request was made for FAE Elephant Hospital to closely supervise the elephant’s birth as well as to care for mother and calf in the period following the birth.

Auan arrived at Friends of the Asian Elephant Foundation Hospital on the 30^th of December 1998 at 5.45 am. Her abdominal area and breasts were well expanded and enlarged. Her breasts discharged milk upon stimulation. The elephant was healthy, even though she displayed signs of fatigue from her journey to the hospital.

On the 17^th of February 1999 at 3.15 am, Auan’s water broke and she gave birth to her calf. Following the birth, the mother elephant used her front feet to tear open the amniotic sac that contained her calf, and she stepped on the calf many times. The FAE vets and keepers tried to get the elephant under control to stop her from harming her calf. But the elephant refused to listen, and those preventative efforts were not immediately successful. It was then decided to take the calf away from the mother, and to move the calf to a platform near Infirmary Unit 2.

Auan’s calf was a bull that Major General Kriangkrai Charoensiri, Deputy Director of the Territorial Defense Department (rank at the time), named “Pooh Pah”.

Baby Pooh Pah weighed 100 kilograms. He was a healthy little boy who liked to distract his mother during her mealtimes. If the baby was in a good mood, he would step on his wash basin, and use his trunk to play with the water. He liked to make noises while he drank milk from his mother’s breasts.

On 21 May 2002, Pooh Pah’s neck began to swell. After three days of treatment, the calf passed away on Friday the 24^th of May 2002 at the age of 3 years and 3 months. Autopsy results revealed that the calf suffered from hemorrhagic septicemia.

Present condition: Auan is a happy, healthy elephant. There are times when her eyes would shed tears. The elephant likes to walk around and forage inside the solar-powered corral. However, activities inside the corral must come to a pause during the rainy season, as the storms can put the elephant in danger.