Vietnam’s jumbos running out of ‘luck’

Under threat: Thong Ngan, a rescued elephant with a broken tusk, walking in Yok Don National Park, Dak Lak province. — AFP

BUON MA THUOT (Vietnam): In a village in Vietnam’s “elephant kingdom”, a vendor holds up a severed, dried tail dotted with coarse hairs she promises will bring good luck – a grim new trade that is endangering the country’s few remaining elephants.

“I’ll cut a hair off right in front of you here, so you can be sure it’s not fake,” said the saleswoman in Tri A village in the country’s forested central highlands.