VietNamNet Bridge – Three baby elephants were reported drown in the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak. This is the first case in Vietnam.

At 11pm, January 3, people in a hamlet in La R’ve commune in Ea Sup district heard theheart-wrenching bawling of an elephant. They fired torches and ran to the place where the elephant was bawling, around 500m from the village.

When they arrived, the mother elephant had just left. At the site a baby elephant of over 100kg was in the middle of a pile created by road builders. The elephant was dead shortly thereafter.

On January 5, local people detected a dead baby elephant of around 200kg in a stream. Earlier, on December 31, 2010 they found out another baby elephant drowned in a natural lake. The sites where the elephants were found are around 2km from residential areas.

Since August 2010, around 40 wild elephants have been living in the forest of La R’ve commune. They split into small groups of 5-7 heads and destroyed the crops of local residents.

Sometimes they search for food just 400-500m from residential areas. Locals use fires, stroke gongs and beat wooden bells to drive them away but they are not afraid of these things.

Some elephants even had babies in the field.

La R’ve commune previously had a vast area of virgin forest, the home of elephants. The forest has been narrowed due to deforestation.

PV