Asia s elephants clinging to survival

by Lisa Cardy

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ELEPHANT populations in Asia are under threat and the dangerously low numbers could fall�further, according to a report by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).

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Humans invading traditional elephant territory are largely to blame. Elephants risk being run over by vehicles, poisoned, shot by agricultural workers or hunted for their tusks.

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The elephants don't always come off worse, however. Around 300 people a year in Asia are trampled to death by hungry, frustrated elephants as they try to follow traditional migration routes often blocked by newcomers not used to living alongside such large, wild animals.

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Elizabeth Kemf, WWF's species conservation information manager and report co-author, says that the situation looks bleak for the remaining 35,000 to 50,000 animals as humans and elephants compete for increasingly shrinking woodland areas. Cambodia and Vietnam have a particularly bad record. In a mere ten years numbers have plummeted from 2,000 to 400 in Cambodia and from over 1,500 to less than 150 in Vietnam.

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��Press Association

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Although elephants are endangered, to farmers in Asia they're pests disrupting their efforts to make a living. Is it appropriate for western organisations like WWF to dictate the fortunes of the more impoverished east Finding a balance is difficult, what do you think should happen Join in The Answerbank debate, click here.