Julia's epic bike ride to help free elephant Lasah raises £3,192

THE campaign to free a 37-year-old Malaysian elephant has been boosted thanks to a Windermere woman cycling non-stop for 12 hours.

Cyclist Julia Savory and her supporters have so far raised £3,192 to raise awareness of the international bid to get captive Lasah into a sanctuary - far exceeding her £2,000 target.

The wild-born creature appeared in a 1999 Hollywood movie called Anna and the King which starred Jodie Foster as an English governess to the King of Siam’s children. Lasah is now used to give elephant rides in Malaysia.


Animal lover Julia embarked on her static-bike marathon to help raise the profile of efforts to free Lasah more than 6,5000 miles away in tropical Malaysia, South East Asia.

She began pedalling at the National Trust's straw-bale Footprint building, near Windermere, at 7am on Saturday, February 3, feeling "nervous but glad to get on with it".

Julia told the Gazette how grateful she was to other riders who joined her, saying: "They brought energy with them that gave my legs a boost. Gill and Malcolm Mead, from Ambleside, arrived first and cycled from 11am to 1pm. Then Joan Mccadden, from Kendal Cycle Club, arrived at noon for her two-hour ride."

Well-wishers arrived throughout the afternoon, and at 3pm Julia said she "hit the wall". Feeling weary, she could not eat and it was all she could do to keep going. She added: "Luckily at 4pm Tim Price, from Kendal Cycle Club, arrived to do his three-hour stint. Thank goodness! His pace was good and although I couldn’t match it, it was a good boost."

At 7pm when Julia finally stopped she said she felt "exhausted, elated and humbled", and there was "no way" she could not have completed the ride without such support.

"I have since been contacted by people from around the world who wish to help elephant Lasah," said Julia, who is now to write a detailed plan to make sure the money is spent wisely.

She also hopes to visit schools to teach children how best to interact with elephants. "The UK is one of the world’s largest markets for elephant riding so it’s important to get the message out there in a fun and non-distressing way," she told the Gazette. "Just to make sure that elephants like Lasah, that are taken from the wild and broken, become a thing of the past."

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Brigitte Bardot urges Malaysian government to rescue elephant in captivity in Langkawi

KUALA LUMPUR: Screen legend Brigitte Bardot has urged the government to let a wild-born Malaysian elephant kept in captivity in Langkawi to retire in the Kuala Gandah Elephant Sanctuary.

The former singer and actress expressed her concerns about the elephant, named Lasah, in a letter to Natural Resources and Environmental Minister Datuk Seri Dr Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar, dated Oct 11.

Bardot, a renown animal activist, said she was aware that Lasah lived alone and chained for several hours a day. She added that the elephant was used and abused for tourism purposes on the island.

She said, according a Malaysian NGO, media reports and several petitions, Lasah had been used in tourism and entertainment for more than 25 years, worked in a logging camp and spent many years in zoos in and outside the country.

"As you and your Ministry are aware, the only way elephants accept being ridden by tourists is by being crushed and frequently abused.

"Thanks to the advent of the internet and different social medias, this fact is now a common knowledge.

"It is also widely known that elephants must not be kept alone in captivity, males included. Depriving Lasah of the companionship of other elephants is cruel and has severe psychological impact on him, not to mention the repetitive elephant rides and the chains," she said in the letter.

Bardot added that the abuses and exploitation of Lasah has prevented him from expressing his natural behaviors, such as foraging and interacting with other elephants thus why retiring him to the sanctuary would offer him the opportunity to do so.

"To this day, the Malaysian government has spent tens of millions of Ringgit on pandas coming from China, and I can only hope that such a financial effort translates a certain concern about wildlife.

"Therefore I believe that the Malaysian government will have no problem with welcoming and caring for Lasah, who is a Malaysian-born elephant, at the sanctuary.

"It is a moral and ethical obligation to give Lasah the freedom he needs and deserves after so many years of suffering.

"I respectfully ask the Malaysian government to retire Lasah to the Kuala Gandah Elephant Sanctuary where he can live as a free elephant without fear of abuse and exploitation.

"This is what Lasah deserves and the gesture of compassion everyone expects from the Malaysian government," she said.

In July last year, Langkawi Elephant Adventure had dismissed allegations that it had abused Lasah.

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