Elephant twins born last week at a timber camp in Myanmar are now healthy after a shaky first few days in the world, officials told AFP on Thursday.
Pearl Sint was born just minutes before her brother Kyaw Pearl last week at the 60-acre Wingbaw Elephant Camp run by the state-run Myanmar Timber Enterprise in the Bago region.
Standing at about two feet six inches tall, the tiny twins were about four inches smaller than the average calf, said Myo Min Aung, assistant manager of the camp.
This meant that they were not tall enough to reach their mother’s breast and drink milk.
“We helped them by placing small pieces of wood under their front legs and bringing their heads closer to their mother’s breast,” he said.
Photo Credit: AFP
On the third day they were able to eat on their own, and soon they began to develop their own personalities.
“The little male prefers to roam and play with humans rather than stay with his mother,” Myo Min Aung said.
“He’s not drinking as much milk as the female dog.”
Another official at the camp, who did not want to be named, said he hoped the twins would not behave like their father, a bull elephant called Aiye Htike.
“His behaviour was very bad. He would attack other elephants and people,” he said.
The official said the twins’ mother, Pearl Sander, “has a kind heart.”
Photo Credit: AFP
“She doesn’t attack others… We are training the twins to behave well, not like their father.”
With the arrival of the twins, the elephant camp’s population has increased to nine, the official said.
Previously, about 3,000 elephants were used for labour in state timber enterprises in Myanmar, most of them transporting freshly cut trees through dense forest to transportation hubs and mills.
But now the people of the Wingabaw camp, like many others, have replaced wood with humans and have become a tourist attraction.
There are fewer than 50,000 Asian elephants left in the wild, and fewer than 2,000 of them are found in Myanmar, according to 2018 data from environmental group WWF.
“This is the first time I personally witnessed an elephant giving birth to twins,” Myo Min Aung said.
“I am happy to take care of these little twin elephants, but it is also a big responsibility.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
