Swazi elephants get vesectomies !

[Guest guest]

Swazi elephants get vesectomies

 

 

Staff Reporter August 10 2009 at 10:26AM

 

 

 

 

 

 

In an effort to reduce the need for elephant culling, Disney Animal Kingdom vets have successfully performed vasectomies on seven Swaziland bull elephants.The elephants were from the Hlane Royal National Park and Mkhaya Game Reserve, both owned by Big Game Parks. The parks carry small elephant herds.While the operation helped to pave the way forward in finding environmentally sound, financially viable and humane methods of elephant population control, park managers said the vasectomy operation was expensive and that similar efforts would be useful only in managing small herds.Big Game Parks marketing manager Mike Richardson said: "I accompanied the ground crew, while Mick Reilly, the head of conservation, took to the air in a helicopter."Within a quarter of an hour, the call came in: 'The bull is down', and within five minutes, we had bushwhacked our way to the area where the immobilised elephant lay."A ground team cleared the bush, and five minutes later the elephant was suspended from the crane and having a harness fitted, before it was flipped the right way up. A sterile operating table was set up on the crane truck and, while the surgeons had their scrubs fitted, the flanks of the elephant were scrubbed and prepared for surgery."Two 12cm incisions were cut into the elephant's flanks through which a 1.5m laparoscope fitted with a camera attachment and a light was inserted, allowing surgeons to operate. The elephant was then stitched up with stainless-steel trace wire, injected with an antidote before it lumbered to its feet and returned to its herd.Park authorities said they would monitor the elephants."The full impact - and ultimate success or failure - of the operation is only likely to be quantifiable in four to five years from now, due to the interval between calving in elephants", said Reilly.SANParks vet Markus Hofmeyr confirmed that vasectomies would not be a solution in controlling elephant numbers in South African parks with large populations. - Staff Reporter

 

 

This article was originally published on page 3 of The Star on August 10, 2009