An Indian Teacher Making Great Strides for Elephant Conservation

In July 2012, Asian Elephant Support was introduced to Mamatha Sathyanarayana, a young biology teacher from Mysore, India.  Along with her teaching responsibilities, she is also very involved in wildlife conservation.  She facilitates many educational workshops about wildlife and the forest for the local village children.

In 2011, Mamatha received a small grant from the International Elephant Foundation to develop a Human-Elephant Coexistence workshop for children in her home state of Karnataka.  She submitted an abstract on this workshop to the International Zoo Educators organization, hoping to present her work at the 2012 conference hosted by the Chester Zoo in the United Kingdom.  Her abstract was accepted and we were delighted to assist with partial funding to help defray her travel expenses.

She was truly grateful to be able to attend this conference and sent us a few pictures and a summary of what this opportunity meant to her.  She advised there was record attendance which gave her the opportunity to meet many eminent educators from all over the world.  The conference schedule was packed with case studies, papers, workshops, and poster presentations,  providing her with a lot of new ideas to take home.  Even with the busy schedule, there was time to enjoy the Chester Zoo and an opportunity to see the old historic city of Chester.  

Sharing knowledge is invaluable and we feel it is important to share the good conservation work that is being done in Asia with the Western world. Dedicated educators like Mamatha Sathyanarayana, whose passion for wildlife involves teaching both in and out of the classroom, represent a very important element in elephant conservation.  

With Mamatha’s help, her students will grow into adults with a better understanding of our wonderful planet and its amazing and precious creatures and wild places.  

Thank you, Mamatha, and our very best wishes to you!

Portable Scales for VESSWIC

In 2010 our Board voted to purchase two portable scales for Vesswic’s use in caring for elephants in the Way Kambas ECC and other camps in Sumatra. We are happy to announce that they finally made it to Sumatra. One of  directors,  April Yoder, recently travelled to Sumatra and had the honor of delivering  the scales in person. (Please note that all travel expenses are paid with personal funding and not the foundation.)  

With the addition of two portable scales, VESSWIC veterinarians will now be able to accurately calculate dosages for medication and better monitor the general health of the elephants in the Elephant Conservation Centers.  With an animal as large as an elephant, it can be difficult to visualize weight lost until they have lost a significant amount.  Knowing the baseline weight of an elephant and being able to accurately determine weight on a regular basis can help the VESSWIC veterinarians detect possible health issues much sooner. Also, several babies have been born and it is critical to be able to monitor their weight as they grow to ensure they are healthy.  

The first place we used one of the scales was the EEC in Tangkahan. The mahouts fashioned a platform and each elephant in the camp calmly walked onto the platform to be weighed.  The elephants with calves were a little more challenging. Of course, the babies wanted to stay under mom so it took some coxing to get them to stand next to her, but not on the platform, so we could get her accurate weight.  

Often the weights are calculated by doing field measurements. However, because the results can vary depending on age groups it is not always accurate. To help better understand the correlation between actual weights and field measurements, measurements were also taken on each elephant at the same time.