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Cattledog

(5,897 posts)
Tue May 14, 2019, 07:01 PM May 2019

'A Million Elephants' No More, now only 400 left in wild.



Centuries ago, the kingdom that made up much of modern-day Laos was called Lan Xang. In English: "Land of a Million Elephants."

Yet while the Asiatic elephant may have endured as a cultural icon for the Lao People's Democratic Republic, the numbers tell a story of a species in crisis.

The Laos government and conservation groups estimate there are only about 800 elephants left in the country — 400 wild elephants, 400 in captivity.

"Both populations are not sustainable and are actually declining," says Anabel López Pérez, a biologist from Spain with the Elephant Conservation Center. "And the problems that they face, both populations, are completely different."

https://www.npr.org/2019/05/12/707525699/a-million-elephants-no-more-conservationists-in-laos-rush-to-save-an-icon?utm_campaign=storyshare&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR1jBkMrv2j1__bdp3jfUsyP7OPaOYdlXc5Ly_OHXLSM_apd9cKhM4IzbYo
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