Noy An's Story

You may remember the picture of Noy An with veterinarian Emma Chave from our California Pizza Kitchen fundraiser.  Her mother, Mae Kham di, worked in logging.  There are no real settled logging camps in Laos.  Private timber companies hire a few mahout/elephant pairs for a while and then the mahouts move their elephants to other work sites.  More than 50% of the Lao domesticated elephants still work in logging, but as the forest is shrinking, they have less work than before.  Therefore a proper, responsible transition towards tourism is really needed.  

ElefantAsia is a French NGO working since 2001 to protect the Lao elephants.  Their projects help the Lao domestic population all over Laos and they run the only elephant hospital in the country, based at the Elephant Conservation Center (ECC) in Sayaboury, Laos.

Owners of working elephants in Asian countries usually try to make sure their elephants do not become pregnant.  An elephant’s time out of service during the latter stage of pregnancy and during the first year or two of the calf’s life can inflict very real economic hardship on the owner and his family.  Or, worse, the elephant may have to work her entire pregnancy and return to work with a calf that does not get the proper rest and time to nurse that it needs to thrive.

Noy An is a beneficiary of the “Baby Bonus Program’, an initiative of ElefantAsia.  For Noy An, private donors helped ElefantAsia sponsor the bonus to Mae Kham di’s owners in cash and now the ECC is paying a salary for the mahout as Kham di is ‘hired’ as part of the well thought out eco-tourism camp at the ECC.  The contract for Noy An’s bonus is two years and is allowing Noy An the opportunity of learning about being an elephant at her mother’s side and as a healthy youngster, she is active and inquisitive and a true joy to behold.

In Laos, females are bred to both domestic and wild bulls, with a resulting healthier genetic diversity of the population.  And, as we all know, if there are no baby elephants, the day will come when there will be no elephants.  That is not an acceptable possibility if we can help it.

Asian Elephant Support is pleased to have supported the Elephant Conservation Center with modest funding the last three years.   

Noy An nursing

ECC Bull Treatment

Last month we shared a video with you about the Elephant Conservation Center in Sayaboury, Laos.  Now we’d like to go a bit further into their role as a provider of elephant healthcare in the area.  Here you will see the resident veterinarian Emma clean and dress an abscess on the back of the bull Phu Kam Soey, with the assistance of her aide, Kan.  It is an elaborate process to make sure the abscess is prepared for proper healing.  The elephant is brought into what is referred to as an elephant restraint device.  There, the mahout keeps his attention with treats, usually cooked rice, while the vet performs the necessary steps.  It is imperative that the elephant be made to feel calm and accepting of these medical procedures, such is the importance of the elephant/mahout bond.  This is an example of what drives the motivation for AES:  local, everyday situations where we can be of assistance to elephants and the people whose lives are intrinsically linked to them.  Watch the video below, or on YouTube.

The Elephant Conservation Center

The Elephant Conservation Center (ECC) in Sayaboury, Laos, has become a haven for logging elephant mahouts.  It offers veterinary care among many other needed services to mahouts and their elephants.  Laos is a major contributor to the logging industry, however, it has been severely impacted by illegal logging over the past century.  Now that so much old growth forest has been decimated, it’s not just the trees that have been impacted, but the humans and elephants as well.  With the population of Asian elephants in their range countries declining, the ECC in Laos is a beacon of hope in sustaining their numbers and allowing mahouts to remain culturally relevant.  The following video highlights the importance of the ECC to elephants in Laos.

Asian Elephant Support (AES) in conjunction with ElefantAsia has been fortunate to work with and contribute toward the success of the ECC.  In the past, AES has been able to fund the purchase of dart guns, medicine for their mobile vet unit, a portable scale, and more recently provide for the education and salary of their employee Kan.

Update - Elephants at ERU camps and Sun Bear release

As usual, the Veterinary Society for Sumatran Wildlife Conservation (VESSWIC) veterinarians are working diligently for elephants and other wildlife in Sumatra.  In August, the team visited the Elephant Conservation Centers (ECC) in Minas and Sebanga in the province of Riau.  After VESSWIC assisted the Nature Conservation Agency (BKSDA) with a few cases involving wild and captive elephants, the head of BKSDA Riau sent a formal request for regular health care support.  VESSWIC will be collaborating with the BKSDA to improve the care of the elephants in the Riau elephant camps.  The initial plan is to do quarterly visits for the next 12 months. During this trip the vet team was invited to visit a small conservation forest area inside a pulp and paper production forest. The company with in this conservation area, Arar Abadi Pulp and Paper Company, currently manages 6 elephants, but the management of these elephants will be going back to BKSDA Riau.  The BKSDA and Ara Abadi would like to establish an elephant patrol unit in the Bengkalis district, which is an area of high human-elephant conflict. VESSWIC was asked to evaluate the health and general management of the elephants to determine if they could be used for patrol.  Furthermore, BKSDA has asked VESSWIC to provide technical assistance to establish this new Conservation Response Unit (CRU)/ Elephant Patrol Unit.

Last medical check before transport

In our last update in the April newsletter, VESWIC had assisted BKSDA Aceh with a sun bear rescue.  We are happy to report that two of the sun bears that were being kept in quarantine at the BKSDA headquarters have been released into the Ulu Massen forest area. One of the bears had been confiscated from an illegal private holding facility and the other had been injured in a wire snare and brought to the headquarters for treatment.  

Loading the boat to go deep into the forest

With your support, AES has been able to make a three year commitment to VESSWIC to help them continue the work they are doing for the wildlife and humans living in Sumatra.

Leaving the transport cage

AES helps to further a veterinarian's education

Mr. Pham Van Thinh, a veterinarian from the Daklak Elephant Conservation Center in Vietnam, attended the "Asian Elephant Health, Reproduction and Breeding Management" course, which took place in Sri Lanka this summer. This training course was conducted by the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine & Animal Science of the University of Peradeniya, in collaboration with the Royal Veterinary College of the University of London, UK, the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of Chiang Mai University, Thailand, and the National Elephant Institute in Lampang, Thailand. The partner institutes were the Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWC), Sri Lanka, Department of National Zoological Gardens (DNZG), Sri Lanka, and the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, USA.

The course focused on the management, nutrition, health, reproduction and breeding of Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) with additional discussions on local and regional conservation issues. It had two components: a stand-alone distance learning (online-based) course of 6 weeks duration (12th May – 10th June 2014) that participants completed from their home countries; and a hands-on practical training course of one-week (7th – 11th July 2014) that was conducted on-site in Sri Lanka. The on-site training was conducted at the University of Peradeniya, Pinnawela Elephant Orphanage, Elephant Transit Home and Uda-Walawe National Park.

The course was attended by 22 participants from Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Italy, Lao, Malaysia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, United Kingdom, United States and Vietnam. Asian Elephant Support was proud to sponsor Dr Van Tinh Pham from Vietnam, who works at the Dak Lak Elephant Conservation Center (ECC) in the central highland province of Dak Lak. The ECC aims to protect both wild and domestic elephants in the Dak Lak province, where elephant population numbers are critically low.

The central highlands region is Vietnam's primary elephant habitat. The Dak Lak Elephant Conservation Centre reported that the central highlands region had around 502 captive and more than 550 wild elephants in 1980, but all that are remain now are 49 captive elephants and five herds of wild elephants numbering 60-70 individuals. Shrinking forests, illegal poaching, shortage of food, improper breeding techniques, and overworking have been the cause of deaths of both captive and wild elephants. Experts estimate that the captive elephant population will disappear in 20-30 years if they do not reproduce. According to the Dak Lak ECC, the reproduction rate of captive elephants over the past 30 years has been only 0.6 % per year, and the rate has dropped even further now because of limited opportunity to breed. To boost the captive population there is now an emphasis on reproduction, which was a primary focus in the training course attended by Dr Van Tinh Pham.

With heavy hearts... Noy's passing

Asian Elephant Support has previously collaborated with ElefantAsia on medicines for their mobile clinics and a second dart gun. In August, 2013, AES president Linda delivered to the Elephant Conservation Center in Sayaboury, Laos, a portable scale. It was on this trip that she met Noy, a young orphaned calf the Wildlife Department brought to the ECC for care. It was the too-familiar seesaw of periods of improvement followed by not so good times, The scale was finally showing some steady weight gains when tragedy struck and we believe it is best told by those who were with him and caring for him.

Noy arrived in ECC at the end of May.  He had been spotted by villagers in a farm, close to Nam Pouy's protected area. We told you about his story there. Exactly one month ago, Noy had an accidental fall that left him with severely restricted mobility of his hind legs. He fell down a slope inside his enclosure, a sliding fall of approxiately 1.5 meters, which under normal circumstances would be very unlikely to cause large trauma. A veterinary team was with him within 30 seconds. Unfortunately, radiography is impossible on animals Noy’s size, so there was no way of knowing all of the underlying causes of his symptoms. In the hope that his injuries were reversible, and to avoid and ease the many side effects that comes from being 400 kilos and immobile, Noy has had a devoted team of veterinarians, a biologist, assistants, students and friends working around the clock to try to rehabilitate him and at least keep him happy.

Devastatingly, despite all the best efforts, Noy’s condition had not improved as hoped, but instead in the last few days it declined rapidly until finally yesterday he died quietly.

The post mortem investigations showed that bones in Noy’s back legs were broken in his fall and that he suffered from metabolic bone disease, which means that the skeleton is not as strong as it should be.

Metabolic bone disease is a condition that is painfully common among orphan elephant babies, who don’t get access to the important mother’s milk. From his first day in the center, Noy had been given a carefully composed diet, including mineral supplements and great efforts had been made to provide everything a growing baby elephant body needs. Unfortunately, baby elephants cannot digest cow’s milk and there is no perfect formula that would meet their special needs. The uptake of minerals to the bones is very complex and even with all the building blocks provided, Noy’s body had not been able to create strong enough bones. No cure exists for broken legs in elephants; he would never have been able to walk again.

We will always remember this beautiful and amazingly strong little elephant that touched so many hearts.

After a ceremony, where all the team was able to say goodbye. Noy is now in the forest where he loved to play, resting forever together with his best friends, the red and green plastic reindeer, Jean Paul I and II.

Field Update - Bear Rescue

On February 13, the Veterinary Society for Sumatran Wildlife Conservation (VESSWIC) veterinarians visited the Elephant Conservation Center (ECC) in Minas to assist with the emergency treatment of a juvenile male elephant suffering from chronic weight loss and weakness.  Unfortunately, upon their arrival, the vets found the elephant had already collapsed and had been lying down for two days. After intensive emergency care, the elephant was able to regain its ability to stand up and walk around for a short time, but he sadly passed away the following day.  A post mortem was conducted and besides progressed emaciation, vast and chronic lesions were found in the lung tissues. Additional results from a laboratory are still awaited to determine the exact cause of death.

February 26 - March 1, VESSWIC veterinarians assisted the Nature Conservation Agency in Aceh Province with a sun-bear rescue.   Dr. Anhar Lubis, Aceh Province veterinarian Dr. Rosa, and Dr. Arman, a lecturer from the veterinary faculty in Aceh, joined in this operation.  The male juvenile sun-bear had a serious injury around his left front leg caused by a wire snare in which he had been trapped.  Villagers had released the bear from the snare a few days before the veterinarian team arrived in this remote location and kept him in a small cage. 
 
The infected wound was too serious to allow immediate release back into the wild, so the bear was taken to Nature Conservation Agency headquarters in Banda Aceh for quarantine and further treatment.  Thanks to VESSWIC providing all of the necessary supplies, drugs, and logistics, Dr. Rosa was able to extend the necessary treatment and care for the sun-bear for several weeks.  Currently two more juvenile sun-bears, recently confiscated from illegal trade, are in quarantine, and received intensive health checks and several medical treatments.  The three bears will be released back into the wild when all wounds are healed and the animals are in stable condition. 
 
During the treatment of the bears in quarantine, Dr. Arman and Dr. Arthur invited students from the veterinary faculty to participate in the treatment and handling of the bears. This allowed the veterinary students to get first-hand experience and training in providing the medical needs and the handling of wildlife.

Laos Update

In November 2013, AES provided funding for an elephant caregiver from the Elephant Conservation Center (ECC) in Laos to attend the 6th mahout workshop in Sumatra.

We are pleased to report that as promised, Kan returned to Laos and shared the knowledge he gained at the workshop with the veterinarians and mahouts at the ECC. He has been working very hard and has been given more responsibility. He is now the Elephant Manager, and among other things, is in charge of scheduling for the mahouts, elephant diets, forest management, and is a link between the ECC and the Laotian government.

While Kan was at the mahout workshop, he initiated several conversations with the other mahouts about caring for calves. We are proud of Kan's determination to return to Laos to improve the lives of the two calves living at the ECC. As a result of the dedication of Kan and the other volunteers and staff, the orphan calf at the ECC is thriving. His name is Noy and he now weighs 705 pounds! They have started a training program based on positive reinforcement and Noy enjoys “playing” along. Ultimately, the future of the elephants in Laos is in the hands of the Laotian people and we will continue to support the individuals working diligently every day to improve the lives of the elephants in Laos.

Noy enjoying a dust bath

Sounthone Phitsamone (Kan)

Kan modeling our bumper sticker

AES provided funding for a man named Sounthone Phitsamone (Kan), from the Elephant Conservation Center in Laos, PDR to attend the 2013 FOKMAS mahout workshop. AES has supported the Center on various projects over the last couple of years. We felt it would be helpful for Kan to attend this workshop to gain valuable knowledge from the mahouts in Indonesia. In turn, he would share this information with the mahouts in Laos. Watch for the January newsletter where we will highlight Kan’s trip to Indonesia.

Kan works at the ECC elephant hospital as an assistant to the veterinarians.  Most of the veterinarians speak English and not Laotian (native language of Laos), so Kan also serves as a translator for the veterinarians, mahouts, and owners.  Kan impressed Linda with his enthusiasm and passion for the elephants at the ECC and his English language skills. When Linda returned to the U.S., we began discussing ways to provide additional support to elephants in Laos, and the idea of helping Kan improve his scientific, husbandry, and welfare knowledge by attending the mahout workshop was an obvious choice.

Field Measurements

Because elephant healthcare and welfare knowledge in Laos is very limited, the knowledge and networking connections Kan gained at the mahout workshop will significantly benefit the 10  resident ECC elephants and approximately 300 other elephants that are treated by mobile clinics annually. Among the important elephant care issues discussed and demonstrated at the mahout workshop, Kan learned how critical it is for an elephant to be comfortable with being touched by the mahouts and veterinarians.  When medical treatment is needed, an elephant that is used to being touched by people will be calmer and more accepting of the medical care.  Kan was impressed with how calm, Theo, the male elephant from the Tangkahan ECC was while he had his feet worked on during the footwork demonstration, even though there was a crowd of people around him.  Kan learned how to properly take field measurements to estimate weights which will be very useful in determining correct medicine dosages for treating elephants in remote elephant camps where it is not feasible to use the portable scale donated by AES.

Kan also learned a wealth of useful information for caring for calves. There are currently two calves where Kan works at the ECC in Laos, one of which is an orphan.  Kan spoke at length with the mahouts during the breaks and meals to learn about the mahouts’ experiences with orphans and discussed his own experiences. They talked about elephant behavior, nutrition, feeding schedules, etc.  These discussions will most certainly improve care for orphan elephant calves in both Indonesia and Laos.

Even after the workshop was done for the day, Kan was still actively engaged.  Every evening he had a list of additional questions for Dr. Stremme about reproduction, nutrition, training, and more. Kan learned an incredible amount of practical information from Dr. Stremme.  Kan repeatedly said he couldn’t wait to get back to the ECC in Laos to share this information with veterinarians and mahouts to improve the health and welfare of the elephants in Laos.
 

It was a pleasure to support Kan.  We will continue to communicate with Kan and other participants of the mahout workshop to gain new insights into how AES can more effectively improve Asian elephant health, welfare and humane treatment by facilitating educational opportunities for the people who directly care for elephants in range countries.

Delivering the Scale to the ECC in Sayaboury

Back in the July 2013 newsletter, we shared how your donations made it possible for AES to purchase a portable scale for the Elephant Conservation Center (ECC) in Sayaboury, Laos. On August 12th, AES president, Linda Reifschneider, left St. Louis, MO, and headed to Laos with the scale. Asian Elephant Support has helped fund several projects for ElefantAsia in the past and we wanted to get first-hand observations of the work being done and to meet the individuals that work so diligently to maintain Laos’ only elephant hospital.  

Mother and calf

Sadly, in a country that was once referred to as the “Land of a Million Elephants”, Laos now only has approximately 700 elephants left in the wild and approximately 500 elephants in captivity.  Every elephant is important to the future of wildlife in Laos.  ElefantAsia and the ECC are desperately working to preserve this rapidly declining population.  While being able to obtain an accurate weight to calculate drug dosages is invaluable in a hospital situation, the ECC’s breeding program makes a scale even more useful.  Many of the elephants in captive situations are still being used in the logging industry.  

The ECC offers owners of reproductively viable female elephants the opportunity to still produce a minimal income while their elephant is on “maternity leave”.   The owners are given a small tiller to grow crops for income or to sell and keep the proceeds during the pregnancy. Being able to monitor the weight of these babies will be very beneficial to this program.  Currently, the ECC has one mother and calf pair and a young orphaned calf.

Bull receiving treatment for abscesses

While at the center, Linda had the opportunity to observe the daily medical treatments given to two adult bull elephants.  One suffered a damaged tail from an attack by a wild elephant and the other suffered multiple injuries as a result of a young and inexperienced mahout.  This second incident reinforces the need for better education for mahouts in many areas of Asia, an effort AES is actively pursuing.

Bull with damaged tail with his mahout and owner

Overall, Linda was impressed with the work being done by ElefantAsia and the ECC and we know the scale will be put to good use.  With your help, we look forward to continuing our support for these organizations in the future.  

Meet Agam!

Agam was rescued by local villagers last December after he fell into an abandoned well in the province of Aceh, Sumatra.  It is estimated that he was 10 months old at the time.  

His herd was no longer in the area so Agam wandered around the vicinity of the village after his rescue.  The villagers were concerned that he would not survive without his family, so they contacted the Veterinary Society for Sumatran Wildlife Conservation (VESSWIC).

One of the VESSWIC veterinarians spent several days caring for Agam while they searched for his family.  Unfortunately, they were unsuccessful, so the decision was made to take Agam to the Elephant Conservation Center (ECC) in Saree, Aceh. At the ECC he would have a better chance to survive with proper care and medical attention.  The VESSWIC veterinarians worked with the mahouts and local veterinarians to develop a nutritional food supplement.  While he will eat small amounts of banana, watermelon, grass, and leaves, a majority of his diet consists of this food supplement. Over the next couple of years the amount and composition of the food supplement will change as he grows.

Because of the support of our donors, AES was able to respond immediately to this critical situation and provide funding for Agam. AES has made a commitment to help fund his supplemental feeding for as long as it is necessary, so your continued support is crucial.

In March the VESSWIC veterinarians returned to Saree to check on Agam’s progress. We are happy to report that with your help, he is doing well and continues to thrive.  

ElefantAsia Update

In the past two years, Asian Elephant Support has made donations for medical supplies to ElefantAsia, a French nonprofit organization operating in Laos that is dedicated to protecting Asian elephants.  In December 2012, the AES president made her first visit to Laos to see some of the work we have supported.

The destination was the Elephant Conservation Center (ECC) in Sayaboury, Laos.  The ECC is a privately owned entity that provides funding for the first elephant hospital in Laos.  ElefantAsia has partnered with the ECC and makes up any shortfall in this funding.  ElefantAsia also funds the mobile missions and conservation education outreach program, including a regional mahout association to improve the level of education and elephant welfare.

The ECC raises funds for the hospital by offering lodging and volunteer elephant experience to visitors. While most visitors go for the three-day package for $175, there is also a six day package for $399, and   longer term volunteers are accepted for $399 a week.   The ECC is home to five elephants, one bull and four females, who became residents out of need for a permanent home.  It is located on a gorgeous lake amid beautiful hills and lush flora and is rural enough to preclude unplanned visitors.

ElefantAsia has been working in Laos for 12 years.  Years of visiting every captive elephant they could find with their mobile clinic has built trusting relationships. Today, elephant owners and mahouts are calling for help more frequently and the owners, who are making an income with their elephant, are usually willing to pay for treatment. The mobile units and clinic have helped improve the lives of the elephants by providing inoculations, de-worming medications, other treatments, and kits of basic elephant medical supplies for the mahouts.  ElefantAsia has also initiated a breeding incentive program in which elephant owners/mahouts are paid for the elephant’s “maternity leave” (from near birth until the calf is 18 months of age).  The owner is also given a small plow to assist with alternative income while his elephant is out-of-work.

The ECC has arrangements with local villages to provide training on growing food for the elephants and a “guarantee purchase” program to create sustainable relationships.   Recently, a French agronomist worked for six months to start a gardening system using solar-powered irrigation from the lake to create sustainable food growth for a population of 12 to 15 elephants year round.  This program has also reduced the use of fertilizers and “slash and burn agriculture” through education and support of local producers.  In addition, the ECC offers job opportunities to a dozen or more people.

When you have a program that is making positive strides for an elephant population, you always have future goals.  ElefantAsia would like an enclosed barn for the elephant patients, an ultrasound for the breeding program, and other equipment and medicines.  This visit reinforced our conviction that our past funding to ElefantAsia has been a wise use of our funds and we will look at further ways to help them continue their work in Laos.

Please visit  www.elefantasia.org to learn more about the Elephant Conservation Center and ElefantAsia.

Update from Sumatra

We are delighted to share an August update from Dr. Christopher Stremme, the wildlife veterinarian working with Vesswic in Sumatra.

Hello!    

We are just back from ECC (Elephant Conservation Center) Seblat in Bengkulu.  Things are going well in Seblat, we conducted the quarterly elephant training standard evaluation which we started almost 2 years ago aiming to improve general training and handling standards, especially for health care needs, medical intervention and general handling reliability.  Following a standardized scheme and number of commands and skills, this evaluation has become a main trigger for the mahouts to keep focusing on improvement of elephant training needs for medical and health care management.  The better the training levels are getting now, the slower the progress.  But at least improvement is still slowly increasing and I think the mahouts and camp management have confirmed that Vesswic should keep following this up for maybe one more year to at least stabilize the reached standards.  Besides general health checks and treatments of some minor problems, the regular de-worming and tetanus vaccinations of all 18 ECC Seblat elephants were conducted.

14 year old Robi enjoying the King Grass

The management of the revitalized elephant food plantation, which was started several months ago and supported by Vesswic, is going very well.  For about a month now, king grass is harvested regularly and contributes to improved nutrition for the Seblat elephants.

King Grass harvest

It is a special joy for me to again see the male elephant Harris now being in very healthy and well fed condition, after he was in such a poor and fragile condition when he was rescued with the help of your supporters the end of 2008.  Due to his very good condition now,  ECC Seblat has started to use Harris for protected habitat patrols  and, for this activity, he has been based now alongside 5 other elephants at the 14.00 hectare nature reserve, Bukit Kabar, in central Bengkulu.

Harris and his mahout Saparudin

It is also good news to report that we got approval from the USFWS (United States Fish & Wildlife Service) for a proposal for funding support for the utilization of mahouts and captive elephants from the ECC Way Kambas for forest patrols and HEC (human-elephant conflict) management in and around Way Kambas National Park.  So, funding for these activities, which have been started almost 2 years ago, initiated and supported by Vesswic and Asian Elephant Support, and which have become a vital part of the Way Kambas National Park management strategy, is secured for at least one more year.

Best wishes and many thanks from Sumatra,
Christopher