They are situated in the province of Petchuburi and are home to around 1000 animals. Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand (WFFT) was set up in 2001 by Edwin Wiek with locals' help. Since its founding, they have rescued nearly 5000 animals, including 23 elephants at the time of our visit, from varying cruel situations. They work alongside other organisations, locals and tourist volunteers to try and educate more people about the atrocities that some of these creatures endure. 

As they are an NGO (Non-governmental organization), WFFT relies on funding from other organisations as well as members of the public. To help support the work they do, they offer day visits to the site as well as weekly volunteer placements for those who wish to donate their time and money to fund the valuable work of WFFT. As well as helping out and learning more about how WFFT care for their animals, they also learn about the horrifying lives some animals had before they were rescued. 

WFFT was set up as Asia's first completely chain-free elephant sanctuary and is home to around 23 elephants that have been rescued from their traumatic lives in the tourism industry, logging or street begging where they will have been worked, chained up and abused for most of their lives. Now at WFFT, they are free to roam in the large enclosures alongside other elephants. 

Another huge aspect of WFFT is its wildlife rescue center which has given shelter to thousands of animals over the years. Most of these come to WFFT with the hope of being rehabilitated for release back into the wild but for those that can’t, they are free to spend the rest of their lives safe from cruelty at their new home. The rescue centre is home to a huge variety of animals such as 6 species of gibbon, 5 species of macaques, lorises, langurs and bears amongst many more. Unfortunately, most of the animals shown in the images below will never be able to return to the wild. 

My time at WFFT was spent volunteering at the wildlife rescue centre. We would work long days, with a busy schedule, but the work was worth it. The daily activities would involve food preparation 3 times a day, cleaning out enclosures and preparing enrichment activities for the huge array of animals under our care. Although all the animals here are in a much better condition than they were, some still showed clear signs of their traumatic pasts.

As time goes on WFFT is expanding its operation, offering more ways for people to support the centre through environmental tourist options and creating and upgrading the habitats of many of the animals they look after so they can have the best life they deserve. One of these ways has been the implementation of their tiger rescue centre, home to more than 20 tigers who have been rescued from foul conditions at Phuket Zoo and many from a tiger farm. This was the largest tiger rescue by an NGO in Thailand's History.