Elephants find a haven from poachers

A conservation camp for elephants who lost their jobs because of a logging ban in the Bago ranges has become a refuge for two young calves left motherless by poachers and disease.


TWO YOUNG elephants whose lives were disrupted by the untimely deaths of their mothers have found a safe and caring refuge at a camp housing pachyderms left unemployed by a logging ban in the Bago ranges.

Mary and Yu Yu Htay became friends after arriving within days of each other last month at the Winga Baw Elephant Conservation Camp, near Phayagyi in Bago Region’s Daik-U Township.

Mary, fondly named by camp staff because she was rescued on the eve of Christmas, grew up wild in jungle near the Ayeyarwady Region capital, Pathein.

A poacher killed Mary’s mother for her hide last December.

The distraught calf was found roaming with a herd of cows about five kilometres from where her mother’s body was found.

The cows’ owner alerted the Forest Department and it handed Mary to the care of the Winga Baw Elephant Conservation Camp on January 17.

“She is being nourished by milk formula,” U Myint Soe, the camp’s in-charge, told Frontier as he watched a keeper feed Mary, her dexterous trunk holding the feeding bottle.

After telling Mary’s story, Myint Soe introduced Yu Yu Htay, a playful five-month-old. The calf, who was three months old when her mother died of disease, arrived at the camp a few days before Mary.

“Yu Yu Htay has a friend now,” he said.

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