Elephant Calf Rescued in Sumatra
A few months ago an elephant calf was rescued in Bengkulu Province, Sumatra. It had apparently been abandoned in a plantation. It is not clear what had happened to its mother, but she could have been killed, as sometimes happens to Sumatran elephants if they are found feeding in plantations. The calf (pictured above) has been called Bona, and has received care and treatment by the Veterinary Society for Sumatran Wildlife Conservation (VESSWIC). Bona now has the best chances of survival and living a happy life, thanks to Elephant Family’s long-term investment in their Elephant Health Care Programme, and could even one day become part of the efforts to save Sumatra’s wild elephants.
With a remaining population of 2,000-2,500 Sumatran elephants in the wild, in a country with the second most rapid rate of deforestation in the world, this unique subspecies is highly endangered. As they rapidly lose their homes, herds leave the forests to feed in the plantations for which the forests were cleared in the first place. The Indonesian government’s response has been to capture these ‘problem’ elephants, and hold them in ‘conservation centres’, or elephant camps, which were at first poorly equipped, and lacked trained vets, shade, water and other key facilities.
VESSWIC was established in 2006 with a team of vets that specialise in providing care to improve the health and welfare of these now captive elephants. In particular they provide support for mahouts in each centre, sharing their knowledge of elephant biology, medical care and management during regular workshops. In this way the lives of more than 150 captive elephants have improved across Sumatra.
While Elephant Family is increasingly investing in initiatives to protect wild Asian elephants and their habitat, up to one third of the world’s remaining Asian elephants are in captivity, a fact that cannot be overlooked by conservationists. Furthermore, thanks to VESSWIC’s efforts, it has steadily become possible to use the elephants in conservation response units, elephant-mounted teams that respond to conflict situations between wild elephants and people, and which are established using the elephants from the government camps. Mahouts (elephant-handlers) and their elephants conduct law enforcement patrols along the edge of the national parks, reduce conflict by driving wild elephants back into the parks from crops and plantations, conduct awareness in the local schools and communities, and provide opportunities for tourism. The presence of conservation response units ensure that incidents of conflict between people and elephants do not create animosity in the local communities. Ultimately they complement other conservation initiatives as a vital component of a diverse and comprehensive conservation strategy, and for this reason Elephant Family continues to support VESSWIC’s Elephant Health Care Programme, while also investing in the conservation response units. They have proved so successful that they now have the support of the Indonesian government, which officially stopped capturing elephants from the wild in 2009.
It was the conservation response unit based in Seblat that rescued Bona. The calf is now estimated to be about nine months old and was able to eat and digest solid food to some extent on arrival, despite being far too thin. To begin with the mahouts and the government vet made several attempts to feed different kinds of milk (from powder formula), but Bona’s health deteriorated, and so they switched to providing palm sugar dissolved in water. When conducting their routine visits, the VESSWIC vets realised that this and the solids that Bona was already eating would still not reach the high energy content that a calf at that age would normally get from its mother’s milk. Bona is now eating a supplement of rice, soya beans, palm sugar, and coconut, mixed with small amounts of milk powder, a combination of which was perfected after a few trials. Bona is now doing well, and may one day grow to be a key member of the conservation response unit, helping to protect other elephants fortunate enough to still survive in the nearby Kerinci Seblat National Park.
written by Dan Bucknell on 26th July 11
