Stranded baby elephants rescued by Thai rangers

Bangkok, Mar 30 Six baby elephants separated from their parents and trapped in a muddy pit for days have been rescued by park rangers in rural Thailand, officials said Saturday.

Patrolling rangers chanced upon the struggling herd in a national park east of Bangkok on Wednesday afternoon, park superintendent Prawatsart Chantheap told AFP.

Once the rangers realised the calves, aged between one and four years old, could not climb out of the dirty watering hole, some left the forest to bring back digging tools while others stayed overnight to keep watch over the frightened creatures.

"Our team arrived with hoes (on Thursday morning)... and we began to dig around the rim (of the mud pit) to make it less steep," he said.

After three hours of digging to build a makeshift ramp, the mud-covered babies managed to stumble out of the pit one-by-one as the rangers cheered them on.

"Go, go, follow each other!" the rangers yelled in a video recorded by the national parks department. "Go, children, go!" Prawatsart said the rangers had observed a herd of 30 adult elephants nearby and believed the young calves must have been separated from them.

"We believe they were stuck there for at least two days because after they got out their legs were weak," he said.

Wild elephants are Thailand's national animal and live in the wild in parts of the country but their numbers have dwindled to about 2,700 from a peak of over 100,000 in 1850.

Deforestation and habitat loss has brought them in closer contact with humans in recent decades, and they often clash with villagers and farmers.

Elephants are also poached or domesticated for entertainment and tourism. AMS AMS

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5 Elephants Circled Thai Man On Motorcycle, Trampled Him To Death

Bangkok:

A Thai man was trampled to death by five wild elephants near a rubber plantation Friday, police said, the latest deadly encounter in a country where pachyderms are both venerated and feared.

Masaree Samae, 40, was killed in the early morning attack in southern Yala province, home to many of Thailand's sprawling rubber plantations.

"The victim was riding his motorbike on the way to tap rubber... and was circled by five elephants," police captain Sathit Woonchoom told AFP by phone.

"I conducted the autopsy with a doctor and found wounds on his back and head," Sathit said.

The officer said he heard elephants rustling in the bushes near when he arrived at the scene to investigate.

Thailand's wild elephant population has dwindled to about 2,700 from a peak of 100,000 in 1850, according to the Thai Elephant Conservation Centre.

Deforestation and habitat loss has brought them in closer contact with humans in recent decades, and they often clash with villagers -- sometimes killing them.

Villagers have also killed the elephants despite them being a protected species.

Elephants are also poached or domesticated for entertainment and tourism.

Thailand has come under fire for its notorious elephant tourism trade and the threatened animals are widely used in circus performances, to give rides, or in films and on TV.

In November last year a five-tonne elephant that has starred in feature films and commercials crushed its owner to death in Chiang Mai.

The animal was in musth -- a state of high aggression among males accompanied by a hormonal surge -- when the accident happened, zoo officials said.

Two wild elephants were killed earlier this year by a pineapple farm worker who set up an electric fence set up to kill the creatures.

He was charged with poaching but quickly released on bail.


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Tiruvannamalai Arunachaleswarar Temple elephant dies

Tiruvannamalai Sri Arunachaleswarar Temple elephant Rukmani died in the early hours of Thursday after it sustained injuries. It died 15 days before its 30th birthday.
The cow elephant was laid to rest near Anjeneyar Temple in the afternoon after a team of six veterinarians performed postmortem. Hundreds of devotees and residents of Tiruvannamalai paid homage to their beloved elephant whom they called ‘Rukku’. Priests offered special prayers.

The elephant was brought to the temple at the age of three years and domesticated. It was in the temple for close to 27 years. The elephant was given by the Tamil Nadu government to the temple.

The elephant sustained injuries when it was taken out for a regular walk around 9pm on Wednesday. When it was walking through the fifth prakaram of the temple, a pack of dogs barked and ran towards it. The elephant tried to run away and hit a barricade. The mahout and a few others managed to calm down the elephant and gave it water. After a while, it was taken to its shed. However, the elephant panicked when a dog run towards it. When it tried to run away, it hit a tin sheet and sustained multiple injuries.

Temple authorities engaged a veterinarian and treated Rukku. However, it died within two hours, said the sources in the temple.

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Rangers try to rescue wild elephant in India's northeast

GAUHATI, India (AP) " Indian veterinarians are treating a 10-year-old wild elephant with an injured leg to help it escape from a marshy area where it has been stuck for at least five days.

The state Forest and Environment Ministry said forest rangers are bringing domesticated elephants to help rescue the trapped male elephant in Amchang Wildlife Sanctuary, 40 kilometers (25 miles) east of Gauhati, the capital of Assam state.

Their first priority is to treat the elephant's injury so it can come out on its own.

Such events are becoming increasingly common in the state, which has a large population of wild elephants. Many stray from their herds and enter swampy areas or nearby villages in search of food.

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Man-animal conflict increases as Kerala faces severe drought

As Kerala slips into an unprecedented drought, wild animals have started raiding human settlements in search of water and food, endangering lives of people settled in fringe areas of the forest.

Last week three people were gored to death by elephant herds in separate incidents in the forested Idukki and Wayanad districts.

In the drought-hit Wayanad — the north Kerala district saw 72% deficit rainfall during the last two monsoons — people say besides elephants, other animals like, bison, deer and boars, made regular incursions into their villages.

Pepper plantation worker Nagappan, 34, was gored to death by a tusker three days ago in the district. About one-third of the district has forest cover.

According to forest officials, usually nearly 800 elephants are spotted along the Kabani riverbanks, a favourite summer habitat of jumbos in the Nilagiris, but this year their numbers dwindled to 120 as the river has partially dried up.

“Devoid of food and water, the elephant herds have become aggressive. Small crackers or fire torches fail to deter them these days. Bison and deer are behaving like domesticated animals,” said Velayudhan, a farm labourer of Thalappadi in Wayanad.

Another farmer in Ambalavayal said he lost crops worth Rs 2 lakh in the last three weeks as animals raided his farm.

“Two weeks ago, a tusker strayed almost seven km inside the human settlement.

We dug up 12 small ponds deep in the forest to check this menace,” said Wayanad district collector, BS Thirumeni.

Fed up with monkey menace, a 52-year-old widow had committed suicide in Thiruvananthapruam last week following which forest officials put up monkey traps in the area. Her relatives claimed she resorted to the extreme step after her frequent pleas fell on deaf ears.

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