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Asian elephants are highly intelligent social animals. That, along with their formidable strength, has
been their undoing. From India to Cambodia, the region’s elephants have long served as beasts of
burden, employed in highly dangerous activities like logging and forced to carry tourists on their
backs.

With only a few thousand pachyderms left in the wild, elephants in Asia are facing a bleak future. And so are captive elephants, warn the authors of a new study.

A team of researchers from the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom and the University of Turku in Finland set out to investigate how trends in elephant capture from the wild influenced the birth, death and population growth of 3,500 working elephants over 54 years, between 1960 and 2014, in Myanmar, which has the world’s largest population of wild Asian elephants.

The scientists relied on data involving birth and death rates to assess the outlook for captive elephants. Their findings indicate, not surprisingly, that in order to ensure the population growth of captive elephants, juvenile elephants must be better protected. “Importantly, wild-caught females had reduced birth rates and a higher mortality risk,” they observe in their paper.

“However, despite the disadvantages of wild-capture, the population may not be sustainable without it, with immediate declines owing to an unstable age-structure that may last for 50 years,” they add. “Our results highlight the need to assess the long-term demographic consequences of wild-capture to ensure the sustainability of captive and wild populations as species are increasingly managed and conserved in altered or novel environments.”

A key is to ensure better welfare standards for captive elephants, especially females and their calves, so as to reduce mortality rates and reduce the incentive for wild capture. “[A]s the elephants are separated from their mothers and trained for work around the age of four, [this] can be stressful for them,” the researchers say. Allowing captive mothers enough time and opportunity to bond with their calves is also important.

“Our model suggests we may see declines in captive elephants for up to 50 years so we must now work to ensure that the captive population is sustainable,” says John Jackson, a researcher from the University of Sheffield’s Department of Animal and Plant Sciences who was lead author of the paper. “With so many Asian elephants in captivity, we must safeguard both captive and wild elephant populations and the people living and working alongside them for the future of the species,” he adds.

As tourists, we can all do our best to help captive elephants in small ways. One way of doing so is saying no to elephant rides that are popular tourist attractions in countries like Myanmar and Thailand. These rides can take a heavy emotional and physical toll even on the strongest jumbos. “Many of us have the opportunity to visit captive elephants used in tourism, particularly in Southeast Asia,” Jackson says. “We all have our part to play to ensure that the welfare of captive elephants is improved and this may have a positive effect on Asian elephants globally.”

Simultaneously, conservation efforts aimed at protecting wild herds must be improved to ensure that no wild elephant is taken captive. “The dependence of captive elephant populations on capture from the wild in the past is truly alarming,” notes Prof.Virpi Lummaa, a scientist at the University of Turku. “The problem with elephants is that they take so long to grow and reproduce and have very complex social lives, making them vulnerable to population declines when disturbed.”

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Thai farmers’ joy: elephant damage now covered | #AsiaNewsNetwork

Bangkok (The Nation) - The Thai Cabinet has given its approval for farmers’ insurance to include intrusion by wild elephants that destroys their wet-season rice and maize.

A budget of Bt1.74 billion has been set aside in 2019 to protect farmers against damage to their rice and a further Bt212.8 million for damage to their maize grain, which the farmers grow commercially for livestock animals' feed industry, said Natthaporn Chatusripitak, spokesman for the deputy prime minister in charge of the economy.

The insurance schemes have also been set up to provide two tiers of coverage, tier 1 for a basic insurance policy and tier 2 for a more comprehensive option, which caters both to those willing to pay more for greater protection and to those taking out insurance for the first time.

Besides the usual cover for flood, drought, storms/typhoons, cold weather/frost, and fire, the insurance schemes would now also cover damages caused by wild elephants’ intrusion, Natthaporn said.

Wild elephants have been a menace for decades to people living near forest zones across Thailand, with numerous cases of invasion of farms and houses.

The issue of wild elephants intruding on to farmland has been severe in recent years.

Many cases have made headlines, including one incident in Nakhon Si Thammarat province last month, in which 7-8 wild elephants from Khao Luang forest destroyed orchards in tambon Kha Noi, Sichon district for several days, prompting villagers to call for help from the authorities. The villagers claimed two elephants from the same herd had also been responsible for damaging property three years ago.

In November last year, 40 wild elephants intruded 100 rai (16 hectares) of farmland in Loei’s Phu Luang district and destroyed rice, corn and tapioca, as well as a hut and water containers. The attack prompted Phu Luang Wildlife Sanctuary officials and villagers to set up 15-strong teams to work in shifts around the clock to drive away the elephants. They also advised people not to go out at night due to the risk of elephant attacks.

Earlier last year, wild elephants in Chanthaburi also destroyed 30 durian trees, resulting in damage estimated at Bt400,000.

Increasing concern over the severity of the problem saw the matter being escalated and prompted the government’s inclusion of such a threat in the crop insurance.

It also led to a collaboration between WWF-Thailand and the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation (DNP), resulting in officials fitting six specially made collars to six elephants at Khao Ang Rue Nai Wildlife Sanctuary in Chachoengsao province, since last December 22. The Sanctuary was designated a “red” area, indicating that it was a high human/elephant conflict zone and merited extra attention, in order to reduce the risk of human-elephant conflicts.

DNP deputy director-general Pinsak Suraswadi said during the project launch last month that the collars, which were imported from South Africa, would be used to study the movement of the pachyderms and help resolve the issue of them destroying crops.

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Less than 2,000 elephants survive in Burma

According to official 2018 data from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection, there are only 2,000 domestic and wild elephants in Burma. A collapse of the population despite official rhetoric stressing the importance of preservation, and a recent WWF campaign explaining the importance of protecting this species both iconic and playing a unique and therefore key role in its biotope. Illegal ivory trafficking as well as the exploitation of different parts of the animal for alleged therapeutic benefits, and thus the poaching that results, fuel this rapid disappearance. Between 2010 and 2016, at least 116 of these pachyderms were slaughtered outlawed. And in 2017, authorities identify at least 30 animals that are victims of poaching. Daw Thiri Yadanar, a parliamentarian in the upper house, questioned his colleagues about the massacre during a session on November 16, worried about "This illegal ivory trade from Burma to China and Thailand." "If the government can not prevent the illegal trafficking of elephant tusks and other ivory objects, the dignity of our country is lost." she added. In 1940, there were about 10 000 elephants in the present territory of Burma and around 5000 in the 1990s.

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https://good-animals.com/less-than-2000-elephants-survive-in-burma-8/18686/