Elephant Sanctuary and Deerland Park

My parents took the kids for a day out a few times and one of their best trips was to the  Kuala Gandah Elephant Sanctuary when they were here for a visit.

The Elephant Sanctuary is set up to save the elephants whose habitat is endangered and encroached by development. The park provides a new home for the elephants and is also a research centre of these big creatures. I’m glad to see that they want to create awareness about the importance of the protection of their natural habitat, although it offends me to hear that people can still ride on the elephants. There is an information centre a the park and they show you a documentary – it’s a bit outdated, but it does the job in educating the public.

kuala gandah elephant 10 - Happy Go KL
Photo: Tourism Malaysia

Getting to the elephant sanctuary

As my parents obviously don’t drive here in KL, they took a taxi. It’s not cheap – we paid around RM 400, but if you  are lucky you find a nice driver who enjoys showing tourists around as my parents did. He drove them to the elephant sanctuary in the morning around 11am and they had a walk around. They found out that the feeding and bathing was only at 2 pm so the driver suggested they go to nearby Deerland Park first.

That turned out to be a perfect way to kill time. The kids thought it was a very special experience. They held small animals, cuddled iguanas, fed the deer and even petted a huge snake. It was a good thing that I only saw the pictures…

deerpark 4.1

It is not park with luxury facilities, but it looks like the animals are well cared for and are not made to do circus stunts. It’s a nice place to combine with a day out in the Elephant Sanctuary. They don’t have an official website, but the address is:

Deerland Park
No 67, Jalan Zabidin,
28400 Mentakab,
Pahang Darul Makmur

Every once in a while a discussion spurs up on various Facebook groups about the ethics of the Elephant Sanctuary, with arguments for both sides of the debate. While it is by no means perfect, to me it seems they are doing the best they can with very limited resources. Many harmful practices, like riding the elephants have been stopped. If you want to notch up your elephant experience, check out our post about Elephant Nature Park in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

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