Elephants on parade in Laos as numbers dwindle

[rooster59]

Elephants on parade in Laos as numbers dwindle

 

Elephants take part in a parade during Elephant Festival, which organisers say aims to raise awareness about the animals, in Sayaboury province, Laos February 18, 2017. REUTERS/Phoonsab Thevongsa

 

SAYABOURY, Laos (Reuters) - Dozens of elephants, adorned in bright colors and with garlands of flowers, paraded through a Laotian town on Saturday in a celebration of a species that has become increasingly scarce in the Southeast Asian country.

Known historically as the "Land of a Million Elephants", Laos now has only a few hundred left in the wild and not many more than that in captivity, most of which are used in logging.

Nearly 70 elephants joined the main procession at the 11th annual elephant festival in Sayaboury Province some 200 km (120 miles) northwest of the capital Vientiane.

"The festival is organized to draw the public's attention to the condition of the endangered elephant as well as promoting traditional culture and livelihoods," said Yanyong Sipaseuth, the deputy governor of the province.

Wild elephant numbers have dwindled because of the destruction of their forest habitat, although poaching for ivory has also played a part, conservationists say.

A ban on capturing elephants from the wild so they can be domesticated has put greater strain on the existing captive population, meaning elephants are often worked so hard that they fall sick and no longer reproduce.

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-02-19

[sugarcane24]

Sad.

[honu]

I ran across an interesting reference related to elephants in general and in different countries, here:

 

http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/ac774e/ac774e0c.htm#bm12

 

It's a bit dated, from 1998, but it put the number of wild elephants in Laos at a few hundred then with domestic count a good bit higher (although those weren't hard numbers, and they mentioned different estimates in that).  This citation about prices for elephants highlights the problems in protecting elephants in Laos:

 

Gullmark (1986) says that at the time elephants sold for between US$2,000-5,000 but “the seller sometimes prefers to be paid in gold, silver or hard currency.” Present day prices are unknown but are surely determined by prices in neighboring Thailand - at least for those classes of animals desired in the Thai market. Lao owners, most of whom live reasonably near the Thai border, will often succumb to the temptation of hard currency. The average price for an adult elephant in Thailand is about US$6,000 (150,000 baht), which is 18 times the average annual per capita income in the Lao PDR (US$325).