Vietnam forest elephants are in danger of extinction

Forest elephants in our country are mainly concentrated in the south of Truong Son, Dak Lak province, but now they are gradually absent. In 1975, Dak Lak had about 400 wild elephants and elephants, then in 1990, this number was 200 and by the end of this year it was only below 60.

Vietnamese elephants are Asian elephants, only male elephants have tusks and are not as tall as African elephants. This rare animal is recorded in the World Red Book and Vietnam Red Book in 1992 at the highest level of protection. They live mainly in the Dak Lak plateau, in the primeval forest area along the big Chu Yang Sin mountain range (Lak and Krong Bong districts) and the forest area stretches from Ea Sup district to Buon Don border with Cambodia and the National Park. The family of Yok Don.

Dak Lak is also a famous place for long time with Ban Don place of the M'Nong - Lao people specializing in hunting and domesticating elephants. There used to be many people hunting and hunting wild elephants and 2 people who were honored as elephant king, like Ama Thu, Ama Kong hunted hundreds of elephants from the mountain forest of Yok Don across the big Serepok river.

In order to preserve the rare elephant species of the Central Highlands mountain forest - Vietnam, a few years ago, the State did not allow hunting wild elephants. In the new life of wider exchanges, the indigenous people also reduced the need to domesticate and transport elephants daily, abandoning the tradition of hunting elephants. However, the phenomenon of poaching elephants still occurs with the narrowing of their natural habitat, making the number of rare and precious species decrease significantly year by year.

In 1997, the whole province of Dak Lak had 115 elephants, even fewer forest elephants, only about 30 children. The vast forest of Chu Yang Sin almost no longer sees the presence of forest elephants. By 2000, domestic elephants were reduced to 84 children and in 2004, only 62. At the same time, the forest elephants were reduced to only 10-15 individuals, moving back and forth around the sparse forest area. gradually along the Vietnam - Cambodia border of the districts of Ea Sup, Buon Don and the districts of Chu Jut and Dak Mil of the new province of Dak Nong.

By the end of 2005, the elephant herd of Dak Lak province had no more than 50 elephants, and at the same time the elephant elephants were too small, especially the male elephants had tusks being hunted by the guns of the night.

Many strict elephant protection and conservation measures were launched in early 1992, including the Prime Minister's urgent Directive on the protection of rare and precious wildlife species, the Elephant Conservation Action Program. implemented by FFI and Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Asian Elephant Conservation Workshop in Indochina, creating habitat for wild elephants in Yok Don National Park, issuing many ban on hunting elephants.

But the risk of complete absence of elephants on this plateau in the coming years is clear. Experts said that if there are no measures to conserve and develop natural forests, to return to a peaceful and adequate habitat for elephants, then it is difficult for them to recover and reproduce.