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Published on October 27, 2007

Pattarapon Maneeon said chemical poisoning might not be the only possibility and an epidemic could have killed them. The carcasses of the six cows, aged 15 to 40, were decomposed but vets managed to retrieve some flesh, bones, abdomen fat, grass from their stomachs and maggots.

The jumbos were dead for two months so traces of disease or chemicals might have disintegrated and disappeared, Pattarapon said. He will contact the Medical Science Depart-ment, National Institute of Animal Health and veterinary faculties at universities to see if they can help with testing.

Chalermsak Wanichsombat, director-general of the National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation Department, said he would ask for assistance from labs at Kasetsart and Mahidol universities. He believes the elephants probably died from an epidemic, not chemicals, but wants scientific results to confirm the cause.

Pattarapon said it appeared that the jumbos did not perish instantly and might have suffered a lot, as they appeared to have been struggling. Villagers had also spoken of hearing elephants crying in agony.

The spot where they were found was known to have had other dead elephants before, so it was probably a graveyard where these six elephants hurting from food contamination came to die, he said. Judging from their position with their heads close together, they might have intertwined their trunks as they were all from the same herd. The comment that the jumbos were poisoned was a bit too harsh on villagers, he said, as it was possible that they might have indirectly ingested agricultural chemicals from water sources or caught a disease.

Officials are now looking for two to three other members of the same herd and will survey the forest for risk factors.

Pattarapon said these deaths were regretful because the pachyderm population was already dwindling and the six would have been useful to the ecological system. Since the economic value of one elephant's life was estimated at Bt17 million, their deaths cost the country Bt102 million in foregone tax money, he said.

Saksit Tridech, permanent secretary of the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry, said he had ordered the National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation Department to speed up an investigation into the case. The jumbos' exact cause of death should become clearer next week

He said this case would also lead to implementation of wildlife conservation measures. He urged locals to report similar wildlife deaths.

Soraida Salwala, secretary-general of the Friends of the Asian Elephant Foundation, said the deaths were a great loss and concern, as they were abnormal. If they died from an epidemic, that would affect other elephants in the same forest. But if they died from human action in an attempt to solve the problem of wild elephants, this would be regarded as a tragedy. Authorities should investigate if it was the handiwork of humans.

She wondered why officials took so long to learn about the elephants' deaths, as the scene was only one-and-a-half kilometres away from the Klong Kruawai Wildlife Sanctuary.

The Nation