A helpless baby elephant has won the Thai public’s sympathy but her case has shed light on the pressures facing herds across Asia
K
hao Tom, a two-month-old elephant, plays with a wildlife officer, nudging his face and curling her trunk around his wrist. When she lifts her trunk in the air, signalling that she is hungry, the team at the rescue centre seems relieved – she has not been eating well. A vet prepares a pint-sized bottle of formula, which she gulps down impatiently.
Khao Tom has been in the care of Thailand’s national parks and wildlife department since September, when rangers rescued her from a farming area inside Lam Khlong Ngu national park. Born with a congenital disorder affecting her knees, she struggled to keep up with the herd. Within days of her birth, her mother had moved on without her.
“We didn’t think she would make it,” says Natthanon Panpetch, senior veterinarian and director of the Bueng Chawak wildlife rescue centre. The calf had abrasions all over her body where her mother had tried to drag her through the forest to keep up with the herd and a digestive infection had left her extremely weak.
