Handlers face daunting task of fitting a powerful and dangerous male Cambodian elephant with a new and larger false leg
Wednesday 5 January 2011
Fiona MacGregor
guardian.co.uk
When English wildlife rescuer Nick Marx found three-legged baby elephant Chhouk wandering through the Cambodian jungle, he thought the injured youngster would never survive the snare injuries that cost him his front foot. But after a UK-based prosthetic charity's groundbreaking intervention to fit Chhouk with a false leg two years ago, the little elephant has gone from strength to strength. And as Chhouk, now aged five, enters the elephant equivalent of his hormonal teens, his handlers are faced with the daunting task of fitting a powerful and dangerous male elephant with a new and larger false leg.
Marx and his team at the Phnom Tamao rescue centre, outside the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, are using a hands-off training methods along with the help of Chhouk's adopted "big sister" Lucky, an older female elephant who was also rescued as a baby, to teach him to enter a special enclosure where he can have his false foot safely fitted. It will also minimise his contact with humans allowing him to live a more natural life according to Marx.
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Marx and his team at the Phnom Tamao rescue centre, outside the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, are using a hands-off training methods along with the help of Chhouk's adopted "big sister" Lucky, an older female elephant who was also rescued as a baby, to teach him to enter a special enclosure where he can have his false foot safely fitted. It will also minimise his contact with humans allowing him to live a more natural life according to Marx.
Please click here to read more...
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