No country for elephants: Tame elephant brutalized
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In a village in Dak Lak Province, a domesticated male elephant had been brutally attacked for its tusks.
Scores of cuts inflicted on Pak Ku’s body remained a bit wet six days after the attack, no longer red with blood but beginning to smell foul.
Le Van Ha, the pachyderm’s mahout, counted the cuts like a police officer investigating a scene of crime.
Pak Ku was injured almost everywhere. Its head had 12 cuts, seven others on its hind legs had left its bones exposed, cuts on its left buttock had ripped off a big chunk of flesh. Its belly and back had a number of cuts 3-4cm deep. Its right eye was shut.
It happened one night when Ha had left the animal tied to a tree in the forest, less than 2 km from his house in Don Hamlet, for it to feed and went home. When he returned the following morning, Pak Ku was missing while there was lots of blood on the ground and just a part of the chain left.
At the scene were many plastic containers smelling of gasoline. Locals guessed the poachers had used fire to frighten the elephant, making it run around the tree for the chain to tighten so that it would be unable to resist. Then they had poured gasoline on it and burned the animal alive to soften its skin before killing it with knives and removing its tusks.
Ha and some others followed a bloody trail along the Serepok River for about 5km before they spotted Pak Ku: He was alive but covered in blood.
No one could approach it because it remained spooked. Ha’s attempts to get closer were in vain. That evening, they sent a female elephant, H’Tuk, to bring Pak Ku home.
According to the local police, this was the second time Pak Ku had been attacked. Not long ago, poachers had used electricity to try to kill it but it escaped. The gang had been arrested later.
When we went close to film the unfortunate animal, we saw tears in its eyes. It was tempting to impute a human emotion and think it was weeping.
Five days had passed but Pak Ku remained extremely jittery in human presence. “After the attack, the elephant eats very little and does not dare sleep at night,” Ha said.
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Elephant Pak Ku was assaulted with dozens of cuts on his back
“It is OK now after being treated with medicinal herbs used by ethnic people and we keep away flies from its wounds.”
Nguyen Tru, director of Ban Don Ecotourist Co, which owns Pak Ku, said: “I don’t think the poachers were just being brutal to Pak Ku. I guess someone had ordered them to cut off its tusks.”
Like Pak Ku, many other tame elephants have been cruelly killed in the last few years.
Dealing with poachers
Dan Nang Long, who owns the largest number of elephants in Lak District, looked sad to see his thin elephants without tails.
“Now we no longer dare let the elephants feed in the forest though we know it will cause them to die gradually because they can find enough food and medicinal plants only in the forest,” he said.
“Poachers won’t miss the chance if they see elephants in the forest. So we tie them near our house and watch out at night. Some people cut the hair from their elephants’ tails to avoid losing them to poachers.”
Of Long’s seven animals, three no longer have tails and one has a broken tusk, all lost to poachers.
In Lak District, up to 10 tame elephants have lost their tails to poachers. They are thinner and weaker than the other elephants.
“After losing their tails, the elephants get weak very fast because their tails swat insects away,” Y Phong, whose animals have fallen victim to poachers, said, adding the tailless elephants will die 15-20 years earlier.
We arrived at Jun hamlet, where elephants owned by Dan Nang Long, Y Phong, and H’ang Ro Dam were carrying tourists.
It was raining heavily, the afternoon was cold, and the elephants were moving slowly. Each had three large westerners on its back.
Many elephants stood exhausted in a field nearby after a day’s work. The scene reminded me of H’Tum, a 25-year-old elephant that died of exhaustion at Buon Don Tourist Resort.
“So far, conservation of elephants has only carried out on paper,” Long said. “I own elephants for tourism and am an elephant lover.”
“I am always ready to conserve the domesticated elephants in Daklak, while I don’t think private organizations can do this, it is not difficult for a nation.”
At the moment, Daklak has 50 domesticated animals, the youngest of them being 20 years old. Lak District alone has 23 elephants, six of which are carrying calves.
| Typical assaulting case On October 4 the Daklak Province police arrested four people on suspicion of stealing tail hairs from domesticated elephants. They were Le Viet Dung, 34, of Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province; Dam Van Noi, 24, and Y Bia Hwing, 20, of Daklak Province; and Pham Van Huy, 31, of Dong Nai Province. Earlier, Huy and Noi had gone to Lak District on March 1 to steal elephants. They bought a 50-centimeter-long knife (for chopping bones) and a torch on their way. They cut off the tail of an elephant named H’Tuk and sold it for VND20 million (US$1,000). On July 8 Huy, Hwing, and Dung went to Lak District and used a pair of iron pincers to pull out 200 hairs from the tail of another elephant, H’Na Tuk, and sold them for VND6 million ($300). Tran Minh Duc, a police investigator in Lak District, said: “They were the first cases of elephant stealing we had to deal with and so had difficulties in estimating the loss. The four will be charged with “stealing property.” |
