Elephant Veterinary Centre

An Elephant welfare project supported by STEF

For four years STEF has been funding the building and running costs of a much needed Elephant Veterinary Centre at Khok Kloi, north of Phuket.  The Centre – the first NGO elephant hospital in Southern Thailand – was completed in June 2022 and has been receiving patients since then.  (see news story).  Until recently, the nearest hospital for elephants Southern Thailand had been a four-hour journey by truck.  Although we have been funding the operation of a mobile veterinary clinic since November 2020, we can now also offer help to elephants in need of immediate hospital attention.

We feel immensely proud of this achievement, particularly as we’ve had to overcome plenty of obstacles along the way:  gaining our Government licence as a veterinary hospital, coping with heavy and damaging monsoon rains and, of course, Thailand’s own Covid lockdowns which seriously impeded the progress of the building work. However, we still need funds to purchase more veterinary equipment and drugs (see Elephant Angels), and to pay ongoing running costs for the hospital and mobile clinic.

In the future, we hope to fund the construction of a Visitor and Education Centre at the site of the Veterinary Centre to help visitors understand the importance of the elephant in Thai culture, and to provide an insight into elephant welfare and conservation, in the hope of safeguarding the future of the endangered Asian elephants.  To help us provide these critical services please consider supporting our project.  You can donate here.

[Please click on photos below to enlarge and read captions]