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Drugged wild elephants die in Vietnam escape bid |
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| VIETNAM: November 15, 2001 | ||
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HANOI - Two of Vietnam's few remaining wild elephants died trying to escape a roundup of a rogue herd blamed for trampling villagers to death, Vietnam Television (VTV) reported yesterday.
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The elephants died in the southern province of Binh Thuan after experts from the Malaysian and Vietnamese forestry departments tried to capture them using tranquiliser darts. The state-run station quoted the head of the Malaysian team as saying one of the tranquilised elephants ran amok when it was awakened by people photographing and filming the scene. He said it apparently suffocated this week night after falling over a tree stump. The other died of unknown reasons earlier after running into the jungle, VTV said. The Malaysian team was recommended by the non-governmental organisation Fauna and Flora International (FFI) to capture and move a herd of up to eight wild elephants to Yok Don National Park in the nearby province of Daklak. Frank Momberg, FFI's Indochina director, said the Malaysians were highly skilled and the operation had been well-planned. "But you have to secure the area. If you have uncontrolled public access, this...operation can be very dangerous," he said. The herd has been blamed for trampling to death 12 villagers in Binh Thuan in the past few years. Momberg estimated Vietnam had just 86 elephants left in the wild compared with about 500 in the early 1980s. He said elephants had suffered first at the hands of ivory poachers, then from encroachment into their habitats by farmers and loggers.
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REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
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