THEY say an elephant never forgets — but neither will West Devon teenager Abigail Mitchell, who spent the summer as a volunteer working with elephants in Malaysia.

Abigail, 19, from Milton Combe, has returned home after taking up the opportunity of a gap challenge placement for three months at the Malaysian Elephant Centre at Kuala Gandah, in the state of Prahang.

She said working with elephants during her summer holiday had been 'fantastic'. Her day at the centre would begin at 8am, when volunteers went down to the elephant enclosure and cleaned it out, then fed and trained the animals. In the afternoon, tourists would arrive to see the camp and its important work, as well as the animals' playful side.

'We would ride the elephants. They are very comfortable. The elephant would go in the river and splash around and squirt water at you. It was out of this world,' she said.

There were five elephants at the centre, but Abigail said she developed the strongest bond with a baby one called Mawar, who was found orphaned in the jungle.

'Elephants build up a bond with one person, so she followed me everywhere I went,' she said.

'They were quite difficult to control because they had only been trained to respond to men's voices, and with one elephant all the commands had to be in Burmese.'

But by the end of her time at the centre Abigail said baby elephant Mawar was responding to her and the men were unable to control her.

The centre's key work is tracking rogue elephants, training them to a less destructive life style and 'translocating' them to a national park. The elephant translocaion team tranquilize wild elephants which are encroaching on plantations or population centres and relocate them in national parks. In the past these 'nuisance' elephants were most likely to be shot or poisoned.

On one occasion, Abigail got the chance to go out into the jungle and see the translocation team at work, which she said was 'absolutely amazing'.

Two trained elephants from the centre, Chek Mek and Mek Bunka, go alongside the huge, groggy wild elephant and lead it out of the jungle so it can be transported to a protected natural area where it is released.

'The elephants were very intelligent and quite considerate, if you are falling off, they would stop and steady you down gently.' She said wild male elephants could be very aggressive so the centre now only housed female elephants.

Abigail said she had wanted to travel and was keen to get involved in a conservation project, but only found out she would be working with elephants a week before she left.

She will start a degree in Natural Sciences at Cambridge University next month and said she would definitely like to get involved in another conservation project in the future.

The elephant centre was set up in 1989, by the Malaysian Department of Wildlife and National Parks, but the work of the elephant translocation team was going on for two decades before the centre was built.

Over the last 25 years, the team has successfully relocated more than 400 elephants, bringing the wild elephant population in Malaysia from an alarming low of 500 to about 1,200.

If you would like to find out more about the Malaysian Elephant Appeal, you can visit http://www.elephantappeal.org">www.elephantappeal.org