By AFP - Agence France Presse
Researchers analyze dung DNA to save Laotian elephants.
Stuart GRAHAM
Slow and silent, the former logging elephant Mae Khoun Nung emerges from a forest in northern Laos and follows his guide to an animal hospital for a check-up.
Once abundant in the forests of Laos, Asian elephants like her have been decimated by habitat destruction, hard work in the logging industry, poaching, and scarce breeding opportunities.
However, conservationists hope that DNA analysis of elephant dung will help them track wild and captive tusks, ensuring a healthy gene pool and devising an effective breeding plan to protect the species.
Laos, once proudly known as “Lane Xang” or “Land of a Million Elephants,” now has between 500 and 1,000 of these animals, just a third of the population two decades ago, according to conservation group WWF-Laos.
Around ten elephants die every year for every one or two born, a rate that puts the animals at risk of total extinction in the Southeast Asian country.
“The ultimate goal would be to ensure a healthy population of elephants in captivity to act as a genetic reservoir if the wild population collapses,” wildlife biologist Anabel Lopez Perez told AFP in her laboratory at the Elephant Conservation Center (ECC) in Sainyabuli province.
Once researchers know how many elephants there are in the country - by testing cells containing DNA in the dung - Perez said a breeding plan would help them manage genetic diversity, avoid inbreeding, and produce healthier offspring that could be introduced into the wild to bolster the dwindling population.
- Elephant hospital
At the ECC hospital, which houses 28 elephants in its 500-hectare (1,200-acre) sanctuary, Mae Khoun Nung stands with her back to a tall metal scaffolding structure designed especially for animal check-ups.
Sounthone Phitsamone, who manages the center's elephant handlers and acts as an assistant veterinarian, taps the animal's leg, and she calmly lifts her foot for him to examine.
Using a knife, he cuts out the cracks and gaps in the hard, mud-covered nail.
Mae Khoun Nung spent her adult life in logging operations until she was handed over to the ECC by her owner in 2014 after work ran out and it became increasingly difficult to support her.
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Elephants like her once roamed much of Asia but are now restricted to less than a fifth of their original range, according to the WWF.
Their numbers in the wild have halved since the beginning of the 20th century, with only 40,000 to 50,000 left, according to the organization.
In the Nam Poui National Protected Area, researchers are now roaming the rugged hills and forests, collecting DNA from fecal samples of the area's 50 to 60 remaining wild elephants.
WWF-Laos, which is collaborating with ECC and the Smithsonian Institution on the project, said that DNA analysis of the dung would allow researchers to identify individual elephants, determine their sex, track their movements, and understand family relationships within the herds.
“Although the Nam Poui NPA represents a significant habitat for one of the few remaining large wild elephant populations in Laos, we do not have precise data on its composition,” WWF-Laos said in a statement to AFP.
-- Declining numbers
In 2018, a government ban on illegal logging - an industry that used elephants to transport timber from forests - resulted in the animals being sent to work in the tourism sector while others were sold to zoos, circuses, and breeders.
The ECC tries to buy and house captive elephants when they are put up for sale, but since 2010, only six pregnancies with three calves have resulted.
Many of the center's elephants are old and in poor condition due to years of hard work, Phitsamone told AFP.
Mae Khoun Nung herself is 45 years old. On the bank of a reservoir, a short walk from the elephant hospital, she stops near the water's edge.
A small herd is diving beneath the surface and using their trunks to spray her back, but she has grown up isolated from other elephants and finds it difficult to socialize.
Bathing is something she prefers to do alone.
Instead, she heads to a pile of banana trees left for the herd and has a snack.
Phitsamone has been working at the elephant center for over a decade and has no illusions about the difficulty of saving her country's gentle giants.
“If you compare Laos with other countries, the number of elephants in the database is small and decreasing,” he said.
“I don't know if it will be okay in 20 or 30 years, who knows.”
srg/pdw/sco/cwl
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