Remembering Lives Lost This Year (Burma)

The Death of Endangered Species: 23-Day-Old Elephant Calf (Section of article)

See link for photo of ““Mi Kaunt Ya”

“Mi Kaunt Ya” (“adopted girl”) was born in a small ravine in the Southern Arakan mountain range—a region with a remarkable concentration of wild elephants. Her mother was shooed away by bamboo harvesters who were so distracted by their fear that they did not know that the elephant was just out of labour. The mother and child never reunited.

Veterinarians from the regional Emergency Elephant Response Unit adopted the calf, but she only survived for 23 days, dying of diarrheal disease on July 3 at the Thayet-san elephant camp in Irrawaddy Division.

The public showed great sympathy toward the elephant, and her death reminded the country’s policymakers of the importance of conserving the country’s wild elephant population and their habitats that have shrunk as a result of human encroachment.

Burma is home to 4-5,000 wild Asian elephants, as well as the world’s largest captive elephant population, which has seen a dramatic decline over the past few decades due to illegal poaching and an ongoing human-elephant conflict.

http://www.irrawaddy.com/specials/remembering-lives-lost-year.html