But the financial pressures of caring for 73 elephants during the pandemic are extreme. An elephant eats about 300 pounds of food (grasses, mostly, but also fresh fruits) a day at a cost of about £12 per animal—that’s about a ton, or £21,000 a month. And that doesn’t include money spent on medicine, vitamins, and the salaries for 142 camp staff, including 120 mahouts, as well as veterinarians and service workers. In April 2020, she told National Geographic, “If COVID lasts for a year, I won’t have any money. But I have to keep fighting.”
A year later, she’s still fighting. The camp’s £420,000 savings are depleted, and Kalmapijit has taken out several bank loans. “I’ve borrowed over 45 million Thai baht [more than a million pounds] since COVID started a year ago,” she says. “And I know it’s not going to be enough. I don’t know how this is going to…
