Battered rogue elephant herd safe in Vietnam park
HANOI - Malaysian forest rangers working in Vietnam
have succeeded in relocating a herd of six rogue elephants, blamed
for the deaths of 13 people, to the safety of a national park, conservationists said on
Thursday.
Fauna and Flora International (FFI) said the two female and four male elephants had been
moved from the southern province of Binh Thuan to Yok Don National Park in Daklak
province after a difficult five-week operation in which two elephants died.
"Otherwise the operation may have concluded," she said.
An FFI news release said two of the surviving elephants were found to have had their
trunks cut off by villagers who discovered them rooting for salt in the ashes of kitchen fires.
The rogue herd, which rampaged through villages in Binh Thuan looking for food after the
destruction of their forest habitat, is blamed for the deaths of 13 people in the province in
the past three years.
An FFI official told Reuters all the elephants from the rogue herd were believed to have
been captured, but the rangers would stay in Binh Thuan until Friday as there was the
possibly that one young elephant was still at large.
The elephants were some of the last living wild in Vietnam.
The government had said they would be shot if they were not caught and brought to Yok
Don by the end of the year. FFI arranged for Malaysian foresters expert in dealing with
elephants to conduct the roundup.
Two of the elephants died during the tricky and dangerous $233,000 operation, one after
falling on a rock having been tranquillised and the other after falling on a tree-trunk having
being startled by journalists who FFI described as "reckless".
The six elephants will join a herd of five or six others already in Yok Don.
FFI estimates there are fewer than 85 elephants remaining in the wild in Vietnam,
compared with about 500 in the early 1980s. It says elephants suffered first at the hand of
ivory poachers, then from encroachment by farmers and loggers.
The group urged Vietnam in a news release to take "all measures" to the prevent further
destruction of the elephants' forest habitats in Daklak's Ea Sup, Cu Jut and Dak Mil
districts.
Reuters - December 14, 2001.
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