The smell was ghastly and the sight even worse. Twenty-five elephants lay dead in a riverbed in the Ayeyawady (Irrawaddy) delta in southwestern Myanmar. “The stench is what led villagers to the bodies in the first place,” says Aung Myo Chit, the Smithsonian Institution’s Myanmar country coordinator, who also leads a local NGO, Growth for […]
Tag: Asian Elephant
POLL: Should the export of young elephants to Chinese zoos be banned?
After being taken from her family and the only life she’s ever known, a young female elephant estimated to be just five years old is loaded onto a truck, while men repeatedly kick her in the head, hit her and pull her by a rope as they try to get her to move back. Her […]
POLL: Should elephants be kept in captivity?
Water streams off the edges of her giant ears, runs in rivulets down the wrinkles of her slate-grey skin. She presses her whole head into the hose’s force, the spray welling into her mouth. As she drinks, she rubs her skin against the steel fence, her eyelids drooping luxuriously, her trunk relaxing. If ever I’ve […]
Dozens of Laotian elephants “illegally sold to Chinese zoos”
Dozens of elephants from Laos are being illegally bought by China to be displayed in zoos and safari parks across the country, according to wildlife investigator and film-maker Karl Ammann. According to Ammann, so-called captive elephants in Laos sell for about £23,000 before being walked across the border into China by handlers or “mahouts” near […]
POLL: Should Asia’s elephant tourism be banned?
Businesses in Asia have often justified so-called elephant tourism by arguing that the industry benefits elephants and helps safeguard this endangered animal. But new research shows that elephant tourism is actually rife with cruelty. The survey, conducted by internationally recognized animal welfare group World Animal Protection, found that three out of every four elephants recorded […]
Video: Text Messages Prevent Deaths by Elephants in India
In India, millions of people live alongside Asian elephants. Generally, they interact peacefully. But sometimes encounters can turn deadly. The stakes are particularly high in the southeastern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Between 1994 and 2013, 41 people there lost their lives in encounters with elephants. But now, new technology is helping prevent such deaths: […]
Tracking one of the world’s last Great Indian Bustards to save the species
Bilal Habib is closely tracking the flight of a bird. Six times a day he gets its location, within a few hundred feet, through a GPS monitoring device attached to its body. One of the last members of its species, this Great Indian Bustard is part of the latest effort to save its kind from […]
The Thai ‘honeypots’ used to traffic wild animals out of South Africa: Women pose as hunters with licences to slaughter rhinos
This photograph of a Thai woman sitting on top of a dead rhino with a rifle in hand is a ‘fake hunt’ photo allowing poachers to get away with their illegal wildlife trade, authorities believe. Authorities say that she is one of the women allegedly hired by a Laotian wildlife trafficking gang to pose as […]