Why this Redding nurse goes to Asia to care for abused and injured elephants

A retired Redding nurse and animal lover is helping veterinarians in Asia care for some very large patients — some that weigh as much as 8,000 pounds.

Kathy Snyder traveled to Thailand in early November ― the latest of several trips this year ― to volunteer at an animal rescue that specializes in caring for abused and neglected Asian elephants.

She's helping preserve the species, whose numbers are declining rapidly due to loss of habitat and to illegal slaughter by humans for their ivory or in retaliation for damage to property. The intelligent wild animals are also forced into captivity for entertainment purposes, where they often become sick and miserable, Snyder said.

“Once I learned about their (elephants') compassion and forgiveness, I was hooked” on helping the animals, Snyder said.

Three times in 2023, Snyder made the 18-hour trip by plane from California to Thailand, sometimes making a detour to help out at other animal rescues in Australia or elsewhere in Asia. After reaching the major Thailand city of Chiang Mai, she'd then make a two-hour road trip into the jungle to reach the 250-acre Elephant Nature Park. Each week, around 60 volunteers help care for elephants there.

Those volunteers stay in the park’s housing and eat vegan meals prepared for them. When Snyder comes, she said she stays for one to two months.

Healthy elephants living in the sanctuary have lifespans similar to humans and mature at about the same rate, said Snyder.

Her favorite elephant at the park is Thong Ae, pronounced "Tong-ee." Born in 2016, that youthful elephant is “very much the social butterfly,” Snyder said, and “quite mischievous. She gets into everything. She opens gates and gets into the kitchen and steals pumpkins and watermelons. She's like a 1,200-pound toddler."

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Helping in the 'elephant kitchen'

When Snyder comes to volunteer, the retired registered nurse assists veterinarians who care for the elephants and other creatures in the park.

“I help (vets) with medications, IV therapy, wound care and any other medical care that the elephants require,” she said. It’s “very easy to transfer my nursing experience over to the animals," Snyder added. "Everyone has nearly the same organs and bones; they are just bigger or smaller, or in a different location."

When not helping the veterinarians, Snyder said she prepares meals in the “elephant kitchen” or helps with other chores.

“Elephants eat about 10% of their body weight (about 551 pounds) per day and we have over 118 elephants. That’s a lot of food to prepare,” Snyder said.

Volunteers aren’t the only ones admiring the animals.

About 200 tourists visit the sanctuary each day to watch the highly social animals interact with each other, said Snyder.

The park is also home to dogs, cats, cows, horses and other animals, most rescued from the meat trade. It’s one of several sanctuaries in Thailand, Cambodia and Laos, all through the efforts of animal lovers worldwide and the park’s founder, Saengduean “Lek” Chailert.

Compassion for animals bloomed at an early age

Chailert and Snyder both grew up loving animals.

Chailert was a child when she fell in love with caring for elephants. Her grandfather received an elephant as a gift, according to her biography. Chailert began rescuing mistreated elephants in the 1990s after she saw elephants abused and suffering while used for tourism or in live animal acts.

She opened Thailand's Elephant Nature Park in 2003 to give her growing pachyderm family a permanent home, where the animals could communicate with each other and form bonds, according to the park's website.

Chailert's conservation efforts have won her awards, including recognition from then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2010 and the Legion d’Honneur award by France’s President Emmanuel Macron in 2022. Chailert was also named one of Time Magazine’s Heroes of Asia in 2005 and has received multiple honors from the Humane Society of the United States, according to the park.

Chailert runs the park with her Canadian husband, Derrick.

Snyder also grew up socializing with animals, spending her youth in Redding with horses and dogs.

After a stint as a nurse in the U.S. Air Force, she returned to Redding to work at Mercy Medical Center, first in the emergency department and then in the recovery room. There were always dogs, cats, horses and goats at her home. “I tried not to take in too many strays, but that didn't always work,” Snyder said.

Although she's a registered nurse, Snyder said she loves taking ecotourism vacations to help care for animals. So, for more than a decade, she spent her vacation time traveling the world ― not to sit on a beach, but to help with animal spay/neuter and rabies vaccination programs at animal wound care clinics and with general care at animal rescue centers.

Snyder's ecotourism trips ― ones requiring people pay their travel expenses, room and board while they volunteer ― have taken her all over the world. She's cared for and fed animals in the South Pacific including Fiji and Australia and helped with spay and neuter programs in Africa and Asia for canines and other animals.

But on her first trip to the elephant park in Thailand in 2016, Snyder said she was “hooked" on elephants.

Her second day there, sanctuary founder Chailert “came up to me and said, ‘I hear that you're a nurse. I need medical help with an injured elephant' and Snyder's seven-day volunteer job turned into an unforgettable six-week experience, she said.

The park’s elephants “have had their spirits broken by torture in order for people to ride their backs, perform tricks in the circus, or perform street begging in the city," said Snyder. When rescued, she said, "they have an uncanny ability to forgive humans. I learned that elephants are amazingly forgiving and have as many emotions as humans.”

Snyder said she saw how new arrivals to the park were “immediately welcomed" by the herds already there.

Once at the park, she said, the elephants “only have to be an elephant. No riding, no tricks, no shows." The animals are able to "just rest under the trees, play in the river, roll around in the mud with free access to food, water and shelter, to live as they choose, not as the humans dictate,” Snyder said.

Snyder retired from Mercy Medical Center in 2017 to spend more time volunteering at rescue centers abroad, but wasn’t able to travel during the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown. During that time, she took a job at the Veteran's Administration Redding Outpatient Clinic.

With most counties' borders closed and no animal ecotourism opportunities, Snyder spent her free time volunteering at Shasta Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation in Anderson.

She became one of a valuable group of volunteers who helped feed and clean up after hundreds of baby birds that come into the center every nesting season, according to Shasta Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation spokesperson Karlene Stoker. Snyder also assisted medical staff when animals came to the center with injuries, Stoker said.

Now, like so many people in 2023, she’s back to her pre-pandemic routine. In Snyder's case, that's caring for her giant patients.

She said she planned to spend most of November and all of December volunteering at the elephant park in Thailand.

Jessica Skropanic is a features reporter for the Record Searchlight/USA Today Network. She covers science, arts, social issues and news stories. Follow her on Twitter @RS_JSkropanic and on Facebook. Join Jessica in the Get Out! Nor Cal recreation Facebook group. To support and sustain this work, please subscribe today. Thank you.

This article originally appeared on Redding Record Searchlight: This North State nurse helps vets care for abused Asian elephants