Elephants hit by monetary crisis

JAKARTA (JP): After being caught in the wilderness, locked up and then "educated", elephants in the famed Lhok Asan training center are now having to bear the brunt of the monetary crisis.

Over the past six months, the 49 beasts in Lhok Asan have had their health care expenses cut because medicine prices have soared as much as 300 percent, a forestry official said.

"Before the economic crisis, each elephant needed Rp 12,000 (US$1.26) in health care a day but now the cost has skyrocketed to Rp 36,000," Bambang Suprayogi, chairman of the Aceh conservation office, told Antara yesterday.

The health-care costs include the procurement of vitamins and antibiotics for the 21 wild elephants and 28 trainer and hunter elephants.

In addition to the medical expenses, the training center spends Rp 343,000 a day feeding the animals that are protected by law and may not be killed even though they often run rampage in residential and agricultural areas.

Bambang said the government's inability to meet the mammoth health-care budget had left the elephants exposed to infection and the deadly tympany.

The economic crisis has prompted the provincial government to stop catching and taming wild elephants, especially because tranquilizer prices have doubled to Rp 3 million per box.

The move is raising fears the population of wild elephants in western and southern Aceh and Pidie regencies will soon start to soar. (pan)