After Years of Captivity, Rescued Young Elephant Enjoys Her First Free, Happy Bath

Ming’s owner had already scripted her destiny. As if separation from her mother, Mee, wasn’t enough of a torture, her owner was now planning to sell her off to a zoo in China, where she would probably spend her life as a glossy model, merely as recognizable as the travel video logs and Instagram postcards of humans. She was powerless, manacled in chains around a camp tree, almost abandoned by life. This is when Aaron Jackson (@planting_peace) knew he had to buy her freedom. At last, Ming was rescued and finally tasted freedom!

And from that day on, she hasn’t missed her cool river baths, as Jackson shared in an adorable video. Ming, the young female Asian elephant, now resides in Save Elephant Foundation, Laos, tucked in a valley near the Nam Young River. In this latest footage, which has been viewed nearly 7 million times on TikTok, Jackson shared the playful episode of Ming’s life wherein she goes every day to the river to enjoy cool, splashing baths along with her friend and colleague Flo.

Jackson, an animal rescuer and activist, has rescued hundreds of elephants in his life, and Ming is one of his favorite “gorgeous girls,” as he calls her. The footage shows Ming dipping her body into the muddy, reddish-hued waters and having the time of her life. While Flo and Jackson give her some good scrubbing and rubs, she engages in playtime activities like splashing water on her back with her trunk, trumpeting with her head towards the sky, and opening her mouth wide. “Ming is just loving her new life as a free elephant,” Jackson said in the overlay caption of the video.

Jackson has dozens of videos that film Ming’s day-to-day episodes as she wanders through the woodlands, chomps down tree leaves, and plays in the mud. One footage shows Ming getting on her nerves after realizing that she couldn’t step inside the boat that Jackson and Flo were riding. She flailed her trunk restlessly in the waters, having a “Kate Winslet” moment, as the videographer described.

Jackson organized Ming’s rescue mission as part of his non-profit organization, Planting Peace / Awake Inc., partnering with Lek, Save Elephant Foundation, Elephant Nature Park, The Original Poop Bags, Paskow Family Foundation, The Elephant Initiative, and the Marshall Family on this rescue, according to a GoFundMe page where he organized a fundraising campaign for the rescue.

The video left thousands of viewers teary-eyed, some of them even expressing wrath at the vulnerable state of elephants in the world. Others congratulated her on her new life, adding notes of hope and wishes. “I would love to sit on the bank and just watch her play all day,” commented @bonniebaltz. @samantha said, “I hope Ming has a beautiful and long life frolicking in the waters.” @autumn said, “All animals should be free,” something which Jackson knows for sure will happen. “She will forever be free,” he writes.

You can follow Aaron Jackson (@planting_peace) on TikTok for more animal rescue videos.