That makes 13 elephants injured by landmines since 1999 along the Burmese border, slightly more than one a year. It mentions an elephant named Motala at the end of the story; I remember her well. Her mahout had her working deep inside Burma when she stepped on the mine, so the poor beast had to walk for days back to Thailand. But once across the border, she was transported to the elephant hospital in Lampang province, and an artificial limb was successfully fitted.
Not 100% sure, but I believe the mines have all been planted by Burma, as the border regions have been rife with ethnic-minority warfare for decades now.
I must be a sociopath, because those stories really really upset me - possibly more than the certain knowledge that plenty of innocent humans get hurt or die the same way.
Me too. Maybe it’s because an elephant could never have built or buried a landmine that makes them seem more innocent than any human?
Wasn’t there a call for an international ban on landmines a couple of years ago? How come that didn’t work out?
Anti-tank mines are designed to penetrate several inches of high-strength steel. As such, they employ large amounts of high explosive (and often shaped charges/explosively-formed penetrators). As elephants are not armored, I’m pretty sure if they set off an anti-tank mine they’d be killed; if not that, then at least his entire leg would be gone, rather than just a flesh wound (albeit possibly a deep one) restricted to the sole of the foot.
Anti-tank mines may also be triggered magnetically rather than (or in conjunction with) being triggered by weight.
The images of elephant injuries seen in Siam Sam’s articles appear to be consistent with anti-personnel mines. Those are intended to injure people, but not to kill them. If you injure someone, a couple of other people are busied with caring for the victim; if the victim’s dead, then his buddies keep on shooting at you. As such, anti-personnel mines aren’t the monstrous blast you might expect.
I won’t call you a sociopath, but your attitude does disturb me somewhat. I like elephants well enough, but I care much more for the average human than any non-animal. Only a truly vicious & violent person is going to elicit less sympathy from me than an elephant.
What do you think the average, non-land-mine-planting person could do to deserve that, might I ask?
No doubt more than the average elephant. See post #6 by The Devils’ Grandmother.
I said there is oftena chance that the human deserved it. There are some pretty bad people in that area, such as the Burmese Army and amphetamine smugglers. Don’t twist what I said into a blanket statement to mean all humans deserve it, although when push comes to shove, the animal will always get more sympathy from me.
Good luck getting the Burmese army to stop planting them, or the ethnic groups they’re fighting. They’re the ones laying them down, even inside Thai territory. With the logging ban in Thailand, a lot of the elephants go into the forests on the Burmese side to work, which is where most, but obviously not all, of the mines are. The mahouts (elephant handlers) don’t take the risks lightly, an elephant is not cheap to buy or care for, but they have to work somewhere. It would help if the Thai government could give more support to unemployed elephants. It does a little, but not nearly enough.
There are also still some danger areas along the border with Cambodia from the old Khmer Rouge days.
So what does that make someone who doesn’t really care that wild animals sometimes get killed or maimed by unexploded ordnance from long-ended conflicts, but who does care about people being injured by said UXO?
I was expanding on what you were saying before, and asking about whether you’d be more, less or equally sympathetic about a child being maimed versus the same happening to an elephant.
Personally I often have more sympathy for animals than humans, but I think it has a lot to do with me being human: I’m wired up (and learn) to not be overly compassionate to humans.
But I can appreciate in the abstract I should feel more sympathy for humans. Arguably we’re capable of suffering more than animals.
Too sensitive to watch the news?
I’ve been watching people kill other people on the tv since I was a kid. Elephants, however, have a very high survival rate. It’s shocking to hear of a person deliberately fucking up a elephant because they are consistently depicted as wise, caring creatures. A person fucking up another person doesn’t even rate a news story, which is a comment on the sad state of human affairs in general.
I met one of the other victims, Malai Tong, on a couple of separate occasions. Hers is one of the happier stories, if you can call it that: she didn’t lose all of her foot and can manage without a prosthesis, and she’s now in a place where she doesn’t have to do anything other than eat, sleep, swim in the river and hang out with her friends. Still, she’s had one hell of a hard time and she’ll never be able to walk normally again. This video shows how she swings her foot to keep it elevated most of the time.
Last time I visited the Elephant Nature Park, she was moving slower than usual, but for a happy reason: she’s pregnant! (She’s been auntie to at least one other baby elephant, so they know she’ll be a good mom.) The staff have been concerned about how well she’ll be able to support herself when giving birth, but they have some contingency plans in place for that.
I think it’s time now for some happy elephant news. From the latest newsletter of the non-profit organization ElephantStay, a healthy new baby boy was born at it’s elephant camp in Ayutthaya province north of Bangkok on August 24. See him here. And a cute little bugger he is, too.
