{"id":246,"date":"2010-08-19T10:26:28","date_gmt":"2010-08-19T00:26:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/?p=246"},"modified":"2010-09-09T11:35:12","modified_gmt":"2010-09-09T01:35:12","slug":"walk-of-the-elephant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/features\/walk-of-the-elephant\/","title":{"rendered":"The shrinking giant: Time is running out for the Asian Elephant"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Image: Courtesy Elephant Nature Park <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Elephants may be the largest land mammal, but their presence is shrinking. We investigate the plight of Asian elephants on the world’s busiest continent. <\/strong><\/p>\n

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The Asian elephant is a keystone species, a critically important part of the forest and savannah regions of Asia, where the few remaining wild populations make their home. These herds are fragmented and scattered, cut off from ancient migratory routes by ever-expanding human development. Ivory trafficking, though a more common fate for their African cousins, is a risk only for the tusked male of the species, leaving a disproportionate number of adult females. The long-term effects of this imbalance are still unknown.<\/p>\n

Today, around 30,000 undomesticated elephants are estimated to live across Asia in a band that stretches from the eastern tip of India and the southern regions of China to Indonesia, crossing through Laos, Thailand, Burma and Cambodia. This now endangered species needs vast tracts of land to survive, but where? Elephant conservation efforts may be the last hope for these predominantly gentle plant-eating giants.<\/p>\n

Thailand’s logging legacy<\/strong>
\nElephants were put to work as beasts of burden in Thailand’s logging industry for decades, until a blanket ban was put in place by the government in 1989. The slow, steady creatures were used to pull felled timber through forests to generate income for their human owners. Though illegal, chains, whipping and stimulant drugs were common practices used to encourage obedience and higher productivity.
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\nAfter animal labour in logging was banned, elephants no longer able to work became expensive burdens for their owners. Some found their way across the border to Burma, where elephant labour was still permitted. Others were put to work in legal trades such as street begging and tourist rides while others still were forced into work under cover of darkness in what became an illegal logging trade. Many were set free to roam alone, wandering through not only their former forest habitats but rural villages and towns. Freshly planted crops became tasty diversions for hungry elephants finding their way through a strange new landscape.<\/p>\n

Even while still legal, logging work required long days and hard work for both man and animal. One elephant, given the name Lilly, was eight years old when she was bought and put to work carrying logs up and down the mountains around northern Thailand. She is now part of a herd owned by elephant campaigner Sangduen “Lek”\u009d Chailert, a Thai native and former tourism worker who was named Time Magazine’s Hero of Asia in 2005. Confronted by the “terrible abuse and neglect”\u009d of elephants, Lek started a sanctuary<\/a> for sick, injured and badly treated elephants in need of a new home. When she found Lilly via an elephant hospital program known as the Jumbo Express, the animal had been tied to a tree and left to die. Her face and body were swollen and she was covered in wounds. Lek and her fellow volunteers suspected the animal had been poisoned. They later found Lilly had been fed methamphetamines by her owners in order to work faster. Lek bought the elephant from her owners and coaxed her back to health at the Elephant Nature Park in Thailand’s north. The healing process was long and the animal still bears scars, but Lilly has been luckier than some. The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) estimates there are still around 1500 elephants working illegally in forests and logging in Thailand alone.<\/p>\n

Fight for life<\/strong>
\nThere are few winners when humans and elephants clash, often over basic resources such as food and land. Across Asia, numerous reports of elephants killing families and destroying flimsy huts have been published by the media in the last two decades. In December 2009, Indian media reported 32 human deaths and 23 elephant deaths over three years in the single district of Keonjhar alone. With massive deforestation occurring in the area, elephants have been found venturing into farms and breaking into food storage areas. Though by nature elephants are relatively passive creatues, they can become hostile towards humans if provoked, scared or blocked from food. The casual stomp of their feet can also be fatal to those unlucky enough to fall underfoot. Ivory poachers, on the other hand, see village-venturing elephants as easy targets. Adam Flinn, a volunteer from Elephant Nature Park, says human development is increasingly encroaching on elephant habitats, leading to an ongoing state of conflict. “It is basically a question of resources and space,”\u009d he adds. “Migratory routes are blocked as land is used for agriculture, housing, industry or tourism.”\u009d Oblivious to human-imposed boundaries, elephant herds sometimes wander through occupied land, eating farmers’ crops and on occasion destroying property. “If money can be made from a patch of land that an elephant herd occupies, profits will almost always win,”\u009d says Flinn.
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\nNew solutions<\/strong>
\nIn Cambodia, conservation group Flora and Fauna International (FFI) is looking at an innovative method of keeping elephants away from farms and crops. By helping farmers in the country’s remote Cardamom Mountains ring their crops with chilli plants, volunteers have been able to help form natural barriers against giant intruders. Elephants, favouring sweet fruits and vegetables like corn and bananas, were deterred by the chilli plants and reportedly wandered back into the forests for food. Protection of this kind is crucial for poorer farmers, who rely on their small crops
\nfor survival.<\/p>\n

Conservation efforts<\/strong>
\nElephas maximus populations are believed to have declined across Asia by more than 50 per cent over the last three generations. All three subspecies are now regarded as endangered according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)’s Red List.<\/p>\n

As elephants require huge tracts of land to live in, space continues to be a massive problem for conservationists. In Thailand, elephant parks provide a safe haven from human conflict and exploitation. Elsewhere throughout Asia, other projects have had varying levels of success at preserving land for elephants to live, play and eat as well as giving access to their migratory routes. Creating space for the world’s biggest land mammal without drastic impact on human development is a delicate process.<\/p>\n

Arteries of life<\/strong>
\nProtection of habitat also means preserving the elephant’s migratory routes, which is important for other animal species as well. An elephant moving through forests is a natural bulldozer, pulling down trees, creating paths and digging waterholes. Smaller animals depend upon the openings they create in these dense wooded areas. Bands of jungle, grassy plains and scrub forest are the arteries of life for elephants and smaller species alike.<\/p>\n

Efforts to protect the Asian elephant are still in their infancy.\u00a0 Solutions often require international cooperation and can be slow to implement. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) is currently working to restore biological corridors to elephants and other large animals across parts of Borneo and the Himalayas, but many other areas are yet to establish a plan for the long-term protection of the species. What happens in the next few decades may be critical to their survival.<\/p>\n

Read more: For the full article, see Science Illustrated magazine, January\/February 2010 Australian edition.
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Elephants may be the largest land mammal, but their presence is shrinking. We investigate the plight of Asian elephants on the world’s busiest continent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,4,11,6],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-animals","category-features","category-in-the-mag","category-nature","tag-rhiannon-elston"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":256,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246\/revisions\/256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}