The artist takes delicate hold of a paintbrush that’s been dipped into a big pot of metallic green paint. With a gentle inclination of the head, as if to say ‘Wait until you see this,’ she takes a graceful swipe at the canvas, depositing an arc of bright, wet colour. She snorts, returns the brush to its pot and selects another, this one slick with red. Another swipe. Another splash of colour. The canvas instinctively leans back, giggling. The canvas in question is me. The artist: an Asian elephant.
Having a t-shirt painted by an elephant called Lucky while you’re wearing it (the shirt, not the elephant) is one of the comedic high points of the new Close Encounters tours at Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Centre. Here, to help meet the staggering costs of feeding and caring for upwards of 1,200 weird and wonderful rare beasties, the doors are being thrown open on a world to which only professional zoologists are usually privy.
And what a world it is. Scaly things; winged things; things sharp of tooth and claw: no animal in need ever gets turned away, according to Wildlife Alliance, the result of which is an ever-evolving menagerie housing some of Southeast Asia’s rarest creatures. Here, for a donation of $100 or more, you can spend the day behind the scenes as a keeper under the watchful eyes of the experts, holding hands with gibbons; playing with infant macaques; dining alongside the world’s only captive hairy-nosed otter and even swimming with elephants (at least one of which does a nice sideline in abstract art).
If such a chance seems rare, the things you can expect to encounter are even rarer. Take the wonderfully named hairy-nosed otter, for instance: it was believed to have been snuffed out altogether until 1997, when one of the elusive creatures – once widespread throughout Southeast Asia – was found killed by a car in Brunei. More than a decade later, in 2010, experts were able to confirm that an image captured by a camera trap the previous year in Malaysia’s Sabah state was in fact a live specimen – the first spotted there in more than a century.
Then there’s the pygmy slow loris. Deceptively doe-eyed, it’s a solitary night-walking primate which can fit inside a large coffee cup. But don’t be fooled by its come-hither look. “Lorises have a gland near the elbow which oozes a strong-smelling substance whenever the loris feels threatened,” says Vietnam-based loris expert Dr Ulrike Streicher, of Fauna and Flora International. “The loris licks this liquid, which, when mixed with saliva, turns toxic. Because of this, the loris’ fierce defensive bite can induce anaphylactic shock in its victim.” Funnily enough, the gates to the loris enclosure at Phnom Tamao stay firmly locked during our visit.
What doesn’t stay locked, however, is the keeper’s side of the tiger enclosure. Here, where saner mortals might fear to tread, these magnificent predators lie prone on cool, shaded concrete barely a whisker’s length from your face. Hot breath rolls over skin as each overgrown puss strikes an at-leisure pose no different than that of your average house cat. On the other end of the feline scale, in their temporary home at the centre’s nursery, two orphaned leopard cat kittens squeak as they nibble your fingertips.
One of the most surreal moments of the day comes when a cream-furred gibbon politely requests a massage. Presenting her thick, lustrous mane and occasionally peering over her shoulder to monitor progress – imagine the product of an unholy union between Star Wars’ Yoda and Chewbacca – she leans back against the mesh, moving only to change which part of her it is you’re massaging. Rehabilitation is a core part of the regime here and another gibbon, this one a male with cataracts and awaiting surgery, gently reaches out to take my hand in his, not letting go for a full ten minutes.
There’s a reason creatures such as these are eyeball-to-eyeball with extinction: the illegal trade in endangered species is believed to be worth up to $30 billion a year, 25% of which passes through Southeast Asia. In 2011, Noor Mahmood almost achieved the unthinkable: about to fly first class to Dubai, the 36-year-old United Arab Emirates national calmly deposited his hand luggage on an x-ray scanner at Bangkok Airport. As the case trundled past security, not a single member of staff noticed the marmoset, gibbon, Asiatic black bear and four leopards – all drugged and less than two months old – packed tightly inside. And the volume is increasing, according to the World Wildlife Fund for Nature’s regional office, but so are efforts to stop it. Among those efforts is this sprawling 2,500-acre ‘safe house’ for exotic creatures rescued from the clutches of would-be smugglers.
Prostrate next to a large inviting pool, a row of Siamese crocodiles with jaws slightly ajar soak up the sunshine like prehistoric solar panels. Believed extinct until Phnom Tamao discovered several pure-blood specimens within its own perimeter, they have a special place in Khmer history and can be seen carved into the ancient walls of Angkor Wat. A few enclosures on, enormous pythons have curled themselves into giant coils. Back in the elephant enclosure, we watch as Chhouk’s prosthetic foot is given the once-over in a series of gracefully choreographed manoeuvres.
“Whether we’re making a global impact or not I don’t know, but certainly we’re touching Cambodia,” says Wildlife Rescue Director Nick Marx, who oversees Phnom Tamao. “The people that know us, they know we’re doing a good job. They can see what can be done with a little bit of money and a lot of hard work and passion. I have always loved wild animals and always will. What people are now doing for wildlife populations is catastrophic: reducing many, many species to extinction. This has to stop. If I can play my little part in helping to stop that, then I reckon my life’s been worthwhile.”
WHO: Aspiring wildlife experts
WHAT: Close Encounters Wildlife Tour
WHERE: Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Centre, south of Phnom Penh; 095 970175; evansv@nullonline.com.kh
WHEN: Now
WHY: This may be your last chance to see these magnificent beasts alive