Roaming around: A herd of wild elephants are seen in a field in Dong Nai province. — Vietnam News/ANN
The Humane Society International (HSI) in Vietnam has coordinated with Dong Nai province to pilot an Elephant Conservation Project that sets up cameras to learn more about the animals and monitor conflict between them and people.
The project is a joint effort between the government and animal protection partner HSI and is part of Vietnam’s new national elephant conservation action plan to protect the country’s remaining wild herds.
By using camera traps to create individual photo IDs and profiles for each animal, while also monitoring human-elephant conflict incidents and conducting elephant distribution surveys, the project aims to better understand elephants, their movements and behaviours to help humanely mitigate human-elephant conflict which threatens this endangered sub-population of Asia’s elephants.
Vietnam’s once thriving population of wild elephants has declined from around 2,000 individuals four decades ago to now as few as 100-130. Dong Nai is home to the second largest remaining wild elephant population in the country. — Vietnam News/ANN
