Heroes in a half shell

Showbusiness has taught us one thing; never work with animals or children. We don’t like children, so here’s a few animals we like...

We spent the last week of our gap year in Borneo seeing rehabilitated orangutans in Sepilok and green turtles laying their eggs on an island imaginatively called Turtle Island.

At Sepilok we waited on a platform looking for anything that moved in the rainforest. Ten minutes passed and nothing… another ten minutes and still nothing… another ten minutes and we hear a rustle – for the last half hour, a giant orangutan has been chilling on a branch, wondering what everyone was looking for.

Young orangutans are released in pairs; the wild is a scary place and they are often seen trying to swing through the trees whilst holding to one another for dear life. They manage quite well given the circumstances.

From hot rainforest to white beaches, Turtle Island is a picture of paradise. Our next wildlife experience snuck up on us once again; while looking out to sea on the beach we were accosted by one tiny turtlet making the dash for the sea. It wasn’t long before his hundreds of brothers and sisters made their plight as well. Not stopping for sun bathers or beach towels, each one struggled their way to the sea, before swimming off like some turbo charged children’s bath toy. It was sad to know that only 1 in one hundred was going to make it to adulthood.

Both conservation centres work extremely hard, and although primarily tourist funded, it was clear the animals came before us. At Sepilok, a baby orangutan takes 7 years to be fully rehabilitated into the wild. At Turtle Island, a dedicated team scours the beach at night to ‘steal’ eggs from the laying mother turtles, only to bury them in the predator free nursery, and release them again 8 weeks later.

The whole experience is exhilarating, and equals the rush of any skydive or bungee jump, whilst also making you realise that this could be a once in a lifetime opportunity; without these organisations, we wouldn’t have these fantastic creatures.

Leila Pinder

Elephants in Sri Lanka

Let’s admit it, waking up at 7 in the morning is rarely fun. But for two months I positively leaped out of bed in the morning with that same feeling in my belly of the childhood excitement of Christmas morning every morning, ‘cos I had an elephant to wash.

I was in the heart of Sri Lanka, volunteering for the Millennium Elephant Foundation. With nothing to do in the village, I was slightly dubious as to what exactly I would do to fill my time. But if paradise can exist without white beaches and clear waters this was it.

After the initial leap out of bed in the morning I would meet up with my elephants mahout (an elephants mother in human form) and we would rouse the old lady out of her sleeping area and set about picking up her poo. Now you could don the gloves and the wellies but when in Rome do as, and so in I would go au naturale; bare feet and hands.

After a coconut husk rub, breakfast and a good shower, the rest of the day was spent on various elephant duties. There was the hiding of elephant medication in loaves of bread, the elephant massages and the trips to the jungle on ellie food expeditions and believe me, they eat a lot.

For those two months having a pet elephant becomes a way of life. Ok, so maybe it’s not the party epicentre of the country, but can you say you have elephant handling experience on your CV?! Kat LeFever