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Central Highlands province mulls ban on elephant rides on safety, welfare concerns

2020-10-21 - Dak Lak, Vietnam. Tran Hoa, Nguyen Quy

Authorities in Dak Lak Province are considering calling a halt to the famous elephant-back tours following accidents and animal protection concerns. Nguyen Thuy Phuong Hieu, deputy director of the Central Highlands province’s Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, said at a recent tourism conference that the tours, which activists describe as "exploitation" of elephants, would stop.

conservation

About 50% of Indian elephant news articles, shows pic of an african elephant, now also in Vietnamese news sites... :(

Elephants in Dak Lak become more aggressive as loss of habitat continues

2017-01-12 - Dak Lak, Vietnam.

According to the Dak Lak provincial Elephant Conservation Center, there are five groups of elephants living in the province, with 60-70 in each group.
In Ea Sup district alone, there is one group of 30-34, while in Buon Don district, there are four groups with 30-36 elephants each. A survey conducted by the center found that the number of elephant groups in Dak Lak has decreased.

conservation

Survival of the unfittest: Vietnamâ€™s disappearing elephants battle to stay alive

2016-12-21 - Dak Lak, Vietnam.

Now there are fewer than 100 elephants left in the wild in Vietnam and just 80 or so in captivity, mostly used to ferry tourists around the leafy forests of Vietnamâ€™s central highlands. Experts say the Dak Lak Elephant Conservation Centre could be the last hope for Vietnamâ€™s disappearing pachyderms.

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The elephants that have threatened many residents in Dak Lak Province since last week.

Wild elephants forage for food in inhabited areas in Vietnam Central Highlands, scare locals

2016-05-19 - Dak Lak, Vietnam.

A herd of 20 wild elephants foraging for food and water near residential areas in the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak is threatening the safety of local residents. Huynh Trung Luan, director of the Dak Lak Elephant Conservation Center, said the elephants have destroyed crops and irrigation systems in several villages in Ea Sup District. â€œThey are apparently moving from the Yok Don National Park to the Ea Sup Thuong Reservoir for water.â€

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The baby elephant that was pulled from a well in Dak Lak Province on March 28, 2016

Elephant herd rejects baby rescued in central Vietnam

2016-04-15 - Dak Lak, Vietnam.

Conservationists in the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak are continuing to try and reintroduce a baby elephant they rescued from a well back to its herd despite several failed attempts. Pham Van Lang, deputy director of the Dak Lak Elephant Conservation Center, told Zing News that the two-month old calf remains at the center as they were seeking more advice from experts and higher authorities.

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Baby elephant rescued from well in central Vietnam

2016-03-29 - Dak Lak, Vietnam.

Animal rescue officers in Dak Lak Province on Monday saved a baby elephant that fell into a five-meter deep well, possibly while looking for water.
Members from the Central Highlands provinceâ€™s Elephant Conservation Center and forest rangers spent one hour pulling the elephant up, after tying a rope around its belly. Local officials believed the elephant belongs of a herd of more than ten elephants which were traveling to a nearby lake for water.

poaching

One of the five elephants that have died in Dak Lak this year. Photo provided by Elephant Conservation Center of Dak Lak province.

Fifth elephant dies in Dak Lak in four months

2015-04-20 - Dak Lak, Vietnam.

The authorities are still conducting investigations to clarify the cause of death of an elephant named H´Lun (38 years old), under the management of Mr. Y Nhuan Hmok, 69, of EaWer commune, Buon Don district, Dak Lak province, famous for elephants in Vietnam. It is reported that the elephant was stabbed on its left thigh by someone on March 30. The Elephant Conservation Center of Dak Lak Province brought the elephant to the Ranger Station No. 1 of Yok Don National Park for treatment.

welfare

Vietnam’s elephants succumb to overwork, poaching

2013-04-21 - Dak Lak, Vietnam.

A group of students from the Ho Chi Minh City College of Culture and Arts recently had a frightening experience in Dak Lak Province when a tamed elephant at a tourist spot suddenly rushed at them. The pachyderm, Y Mol, only backed off after its mahout, Y Suong, jabbed it repeatedly on the head with a spur. But Suong said the big animal was not attacking the students.

conservation

Elephants need forests to reproduce, not money

2012-12-21 - Dak Lak, Vietnam.

Instead of giving us money, please give us forests. We will help elephants reproduce,â€ said an elephant breeder in Dak Lak. The elephant breeders in Dak Lak would receive 414 million dong in financial support from the state for every elephant who gives birth. However, they wish they can receive forests rather than money, because the forests, not money, would help elephants live their normal lives and reproduce.

conservation

Vietnam"s Elephants Face Threats from Near and Far

2012-12-13 - Dak Lak, Vietnam.

At the end of the war in 1975, as many as 2,000 wild elephants roamed the lowland forests of Vietnam. Today, there are as few as 50. Poaching and habitat destruction have brought the animals to the brink of extinction, and conservationists say the only herd with a long-term chance of survival is located along the border separating Yok Don National Park and Cambodia. â€‹â€‹According to park director Tran Van Thanh, the already limited forests are shrinking as local communities cut tre...

conflict

Elephant herd tramples Vietnamese police officer

2012-10-30 - Dak Lak, Vietnam.

A herd of elephants has trampled to death a police officer in a central Vietnamese jungle. The victim and two other men went into the jungle Saturday to look for apricot trees. The director of the elephant conservation center in Daklak province said more than 20 wild elephants attacked the men as they returned home that night. Huynh Trung Luan said two of the men escaped unhurt. The 42-year-old policeman was found dead Sunday morning.

conservation

No one can save Vietnam’s elephants?

2012-10-12 - Dak Lak, Vietnam.

The serious poaching which has not been eased over the last many years has led to the sharp fall of the number of elephant individuals in Vietnam, from 1500-2000 in 1990s to tens of elephants now. Three years ago, FFI, an international flora and fauna conservation organization, gave the warning that the then 150 elephant individuals were in the danger of becoming extinct. Though the poachers still cannot make elephants disappear absolutely from Vietnam, extinction is a foreseeable thing, if Viet...

abstract

Three wild elephants die in one week in Vietnam.

2012-04-09 - Dak Lak, Vietnam.

The Dak Lak Elephant Conservation Centre on Thursday requested an official probe into the deaths of three wild elephants in the Central Highlands district of Ea Sup during the final week of March. A 2-tonne male elephant was found dead on March 31 with many parts of its body missing in Ea Bung Commune. The body of a 4-year-old elephant, weighing some 500kg, was discovered on the same day in Cu M’lanh while five days later a 5-month-old animal was found dead in the same area.

conservation

Local authorities still busy themselves with plans to protect elephants and yew

2012-03-11 - Dak Lak, Vietnam.

Dr Bao Huy from the Tay Nguyen University has warned that the slow implementation of the conservation projects would be a big disadvantage to the province, since a lot of foreign and domestic organizations now show their big interests in the conservation work. The organizations will only provide capital, equipment and techniques to fund the projects if they can see with their eyes, the feasibility of the conservation projects. Meanwhile, Vietnam has to spend too much time on complicated procedur...

death

Dead elephant found in Dak Lak

2011-06-06 - Dak Lak, Vietnam.

Dak Lak Province authorities have incinerated the body of a baby elephant found in Yok Don National Park last Wednesday. Nguyen Con, Yok Don park ranger, said they found the decomposed elephant, weighing around 100 kilograms, at the section No. 290. He said it was a newborn elephant but they couldnâ€™t identify the cause of the death.

event

Elephant race at Vietnam coffee festival

2011-03-11 - Dak Lak, Vietnam.

an elephant race and dug-out canoe race were organized by the Dak Lak Tourism JS Company, with the participation of 20 elephants and 20 dug-out canoes. In the qualifying round, four teams, each comprising 5 elephants aged 23 to 45, raced each other and the first five qualified for the final. Each elephant was ridden by two handlers who prodded the animals to run as fast as they could.

conservation

Tame elephants are used to give rides in Lak District, Central Highland Province of Dak Lak. The province wants funding to conserve the elephants which face high mortality and low fertility

Tame elephants in Vietnam face extinction

2011-02-11 - Dak Lak, Vietnam.

Central Highland Dak Lak Province´s famed tame elephants may become extinct in the next 20-25 years unless conservation project receive Goverment funding, experts said. The population of existing tame elephants is being overexploited for tourism and is under threat from poachers. Elephants are also not being encouraged to breed, according to a study on tamed elephants in the province by Central Highlands University, which showed that the number of tamed elephants in the province had declin...

conservation

Tamed elephants are exhausted serving tourists, the living space for wild elephants is shrinking while the elephant preservation project is still on papers only.

Vietnam: Don Village’s elephants in danger

2011-02-03 - Dak Lak, Vietnam.

The number of elephants in Don Village, Dak Lak province, famous for hunting and taming wild elephants, is going down. According to research, only 0.6 percent of tamed elephants have been reproductive in the last 30 years. Recently, the rate is nearly zero percent because male and female elephants don’t have favorable environment to meet and copulate since they are managed by different people. Moreover, they are overexploited for tourism purposes.

death

Tame elephant dies after stabbing

2011-01-08 - Dak Lak, Vietnam.

A tame elephant that was stabbed dozens of times by poachers two months ago has died, Le Thi Thanh Ha, director of the Ban Don Eco-tourism Company, said on Thursday. Poachers inflicted 217 cuts to the Pak Cu elephant´s hind legs and tail. Ha said the male elephant had long and valuable tusks. The eco-tourism company spent VND50 million (US$2,500) trying to treat the elephant´s injuries.

poaching

Elephant survives second poacher attack

2010-10-25 - Dak Lak, Vietnam.

A tamed elephant with beautiful tusks found last week with hundreds of cuts on his body has been in critical condition, Buon Don District officials said. The tusker was found in a forest near the Ban Don Eco-tourism Company´s office in the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak. Thieves attacked the three-tonne elephant, named Pac Ku, with the intention of killing him and removing his 70cm tusks, local people say.

death

Elephant found dead in Central Highlands

2010-04-09 - Dak Lak, Vietnam.

A mature elephant was found dead Wednesday near a lake and a stream in the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak. Local residents found the elephant when catching fish in the stream in Ea Sup District. The body was stinking and its bones were broken into pieces, they said. Officials surmised that the elephant had been trampled on and killed by others in the herd, making it hard to identify the animals gender.

event

The Buon Ma Thuot-Dak Lak tourism and culture week aims to honor elephants, the most important animal to the Highlands people.

Highlands tourism week celebrates elephants

2009-12-16 - Dak Lak, Vietnam. Cong Hoan – Translated by Kim Khanh

A tourism and culture week themed “Legend of the Central Highlands Elephant” will be held in Buon Ma Thuot City in the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak from December 16-20. Activities will also be held in the city’s districts of Krong and Buon Don (Don Village).

event

Don Village Festival to feature various activities

2009-03-22 - Dak Lak, Vietnam.

The Don Festival, called Buon Don in Vietnamese, is expected to take place from March 22-26 in the Buon Don District, said director of York Don Park, one of official members to join the festival. He said the festival would feature folk games such as buffalo stabbing, food and drink, and an elephant race.

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Dak Lak: Hey elephants, where are you?

2009-02-26 - Dak Lak, Vietnam.

“Elephant culture” are the words the Deputy Director of the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Dak Lak Province, Truong Bi, used to talk about the benefits that Dak Lak gain from elephants. According to Truong Bi, Don village currently has four old elephants which can’t participate in the upcoming elephant festival. Two others have been shot dead by wood thieves. He said that in five years, Don village would not have any elephant left. Elephants give Dak Lak a distinct cultural c...

conflict

Central farmers lose crops to elephants

2008-08-04 - Dak Lak, Vietnam.

Seven members of Y Ngo’s family in the central province of Dak Lak depend on one hectare of farmland. But their farm is all but destroyed, damaged by severe drought and wild elephants. “The area they trample destroys 10 times more than what they eat and there is no way rice can survive being stepped on by elephants,” said Ngo, a farmer in Ba Na Village of Ia J’loi Commune in the province’s Ea Sup District.

death

A tame elephant in Buon Don District, Dak Lak Province

Dak Lak: Tame elephants dying

2008-06-12 - Dak Lak , Vietnam.

The Central Highlands province of Dak Lak is the sole location in Vietnam where there remains the tradition of maintaining herds of tame elephants in its districts of Buon Don, Lac, Ea Sup, and Krong Nang. However, the population of tame elephants is sharply falling. In the past nearly two decades, many tame elephants have died of old age while there is no source of replacement. This fact has threatened the existence of the tame elephant herd in Dak Lak.

death

Famous Dak Lak elephant dies

2008-05-30 - Dak Lak, Vietnam.

An elephant regarded as the biggest in the Central Highlands’ Dak Lak Province, the land of elephants in Viet Nam, suffered a sudden death on Tuesday evening after reportedly eating grass from a field that had been sprayed with insecticide. The 68-year-old elephant, Y Trut, had won many prizes at local races and strength competitions. Y Trut, 7.4 tonnes in weight and 3.4m in height, was buried according to the customs of Tay Nguyen highlanders.

trade

Illegal elephant bone distillation thwarted in Dak Lak

2008-02-28 - Dak Lak, Vietnam. T.N.Quyen

Police of Buon Me Thuot Town in the central highlands province of Dak Lak uncovered an illegal distillation of elephant bones by a local Wednesday. The offender, Vu Thanh Thiem, who was caught in the process of admixing the bones to create a type of medicinal glue, said the 231 kilograms of bones came from his younger brother Vu Thanh Tue who had purchased a dead circus elephant. Thiem, however, failed to present appropriate legal documents for the bones as requested.

conservation

Over VND8.5bil poured into preserving elephant herd

2007-10-15 - Dak Lak, Vietnam.

The People’s Committee of Central Highlands Dak Lak province has decided to spend more than VND 8.5 billion (531,250 USD) from now until 2010 on preserving and developing its tame elephant population. Under the project, an elephant keepers’ club and a tame elephant herd preservation and development centre will be set up in the province. Measures to use elephants for tourism purposes, ensure a sustainable environment and prevent diseases for elephants as well as to reproduce elephants will al...

conservation

Highland province to preserve domesticated elephants

2007-10-08 - Dak Lak, Vietnam. Hoang Thien Nga

The People’s Committee of Dak Lak Province in the central highlands has approved a VND8.5 billion (US$528,500) project to preserve domesticated elephants in the region. Under the project, the province will establish reserve areas and found an association for elephant tamers and breeders, along with other agencies concerned with preserving the animal.

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Tourists kick up the dust on Buon Don’s elephant trails

2007-09-03 - Dak Lak, Vietnam.

The Central Highlands village of Buon Don is renowned throughout the country for importing the ancient Lao practice of elephant taming to the area centuries ago. Located nearly 50 km northwest from the city of Buon Ma Thuot in Dak Lak province and between the two branches of the Serepok River, Buon Don is home to the M’Nong, J’rai, Ede, Lao and Thai ethnic minority groups and for the last two centuries has been the centre of all elephant hunting and taming in Viet Nam.

conservation

Elephants could join dodos in Vietnam central highlands

2007-05-22 - Dak Lak, Vietnam. Thien Truc

Deforestation and owners’ callousness have taken a toll on elephant populations both in the wild and in captivity in Vietnam’s central highlands, sending the giant animals to the brink of extinction. There are only a few hundred elephants left in the area compared with thousands a century ago, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources reports. Dak Lak province, once a pachyderm haven, now has just 50 elephants, mostly in captivity.

conflict

Rampaging Elephants Destroy Crops In Central Vietnam

2006-10-28 - Dak Lak, Vietnam.

A rampaging herd of rare wild elephants is terrorizing two villages in central Vietnam, destroying crops and ignoring villagers' efforts to ward them off, local media reported Friday. No one has been hurt but the elephants have trampled and destroyed 50 hectares of cashew, rice and corn in the villages. It was the second incidence of crop-destroying elephants in Vietnam this year.

conservation

Vietnam to protect wild elephants by electronic chips

2006-05-19 - Dak Lak, Vietnam.

With bears now micro-chipped to protect them after release, elephants are being sized up for a similar program. The Prime Minister has approved a plan the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development’s Forest Protection Department devised to micro-chip elephants as a measure to protect their dwindling numbers.

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Dac Lac Elephant Festival

2004-10-26 - Dak Lak, Vietnam. Vietnam News Agency

Thirty tamed elephants and 60 mahouts will participate in the 2004 Elephant Festival scheduled in Buon Don district of central highlands Dac Lac province on Nov. 6-7. Participating elephants will come from well known areas for elephant taming like the Yok Don national park, and Ea Sup, Buon Don, Lac and Krong Bong districts.

people

Vietnam"s famed elephant tamer

2003-06-04 - Dak Lak, Vietnam. Nga Pham

Ama Kong is not an ordinary 88-year-old man. In a period of 40 years, he has captured and domesticated nearly 300 elephants - 298 to be precise. Descended from a Laotian tribal leader, who was believed to be the founder of the craft of elephant taming, Ama Kong reckons he has now captured and tamed more elephants than the Elephant King himself.

24 years on Internet!

ELEPHANT NEWS was created on 2001 in Munich, and relaunched in Phnom Penh in 2020, with almost 8 000 links to news articles about elephants on the Internet. A number of articles now also have a cross reference to the elephant database, either for individuals elephants and/or to an article about the location holding

facility

Elephants aid locals in creating firebreaks in Chiang Mai forest

2025-03-27 - Chiang Mai, Thailand.

In a united effort to prevent forest fires, a team of three elephants joined over 20 locals in constructing firebreaks in Chiang Mai’s Mae Taeng district on Wednesday. The initiative, led by Phra Kh...

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Read about Plai Valentine in the Elephant Database

Read about Saen Elephant Family Home in the Elephant Database

poaching

Wild tusker Kasera Komban found dead in abandoned septic tank

2025-03-27 - Cholamunda, India.

A Wild tusker, known as Kasera Komban, was found dead in abandoned septic tank in Kerala Malappuram. The tusker used to be affectionately called "Kasera Komban" due to its remarkably long tusks, which...

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Read about Kasera Komban in the Elephant Database

death

Sedgwick County Zoo announces stillborn delivery of elephant calf

2025-03-18 - Wichita, United States.

The Sedgwick County Zoo announced Monday that 29-year-old African elephant Simunye delivered a stillborn calf following a healthy, full-term pregnancy. This would have marked the first elephant born a...

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Read about Malaika in the Elephant Database

Read about Sedgwick County Zoo in the Elephant Database

birth

New Elephant Calf "Gauri" Born In Assam’s Kaziranga National Park

2025-03-08 - Guwahati, India.

A female elephant calf took birth in Assam’s Kaziranga National Park. The newborn, named Gauri, is the offspring of an elephant named Phulmai, who resides within the protected area of Kaziranga.

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Read about Gauri in the Elephant Database

Read about Kaziranga unspecified elephant camp in the Elephant Database

death

TN: 60-year-old female elephant passes away in Trichy

2025-03-05 - Trichy, India.

A 60-year-old female elephant named Jaini, who was being cared for at the MR Palayam Government Elephant Rehabilitation Centre in Reserve Forest under the Trichy Forest Division, has passed away. The ...

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Read about Jaini in the Elephant Database

Read about M. R. Palayam Elephant Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre (ERRC), in the Elephant Database

death

A Tribute to Paolo, Amboseli’s Iconic Elephant

2025-02-07 - Amboseli, Kenya.

We are deeply saddened to announce the passing of Paolo, one of Amboseli’s most famous and cherished elephants. At 46 years old, Paolo’s death marks the loss of a true giant, not only in size but ...

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Read about Paolo in the Elephant Database

Read about Amboseli National Park in the Elephant Database

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