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.
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.
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.
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.
