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A camp official said the twins were about 4 inches shorter than the average calf.
Phayargyi, Myanmar:
Elephant twins born last week in a logging camp in Myanmar are thriving after their first few days in the world, officials told AFP on Thursday.
Pearl Sunt was born minutes before her brother Kyaw Pearl last week at the 60-acre Wingabao elephant camp in Bago region, which is managed by Myanmar Timber Enterprise.
At about two feet and six inches tall, the pint-sized twins were about four inches shorter than the average calf, said Myo Min Aung, the camp’s assistant manager.
This meant that they were not tall enough to reach their mother’s breast and feed.
“We helped them by putting small wooden blocks under their front legs and bringing their heads to their mother’s breasts,” he said.
Photo credit: AFP
On the third day, they were able to feed themselves and quickly showed their personality.
“The little boy prefers to roam around and play with humans instead of staying with his mother,” Myo Min Aung said.
“He’s not feeding as much as a little girl is fed.”
Another camp official, who did not want to be named, said he hoped the twins would be reunited with their father, a bull elephant named Aye Htike.
“He was mistreated. He used to attack other elephants and people,” he said.
Pearl Sundar, mother of the twins, “has a soft heart”, the official said.
Photo credit: AFP
“She doesn’t attack others… We are training the twins to be good like their father.”
The arrival of the twins brings the population of the elephant camp to nine, the official said.
Previously, Myanmar’s state-owned timber companies employed about 3,000 elephants as laborers, the majority of whom dragged freshly felled trees through the dense forest to centers and mills.
But now those living in the Wingabao camp, like many others, take humans instead of logs and make a living as a tourist attraction.
According to 2018 data from the environmental group WWF, fewer than 50,000 Asian elephants remain in the wild, and fewer than 2,000 of them are found in Myanmar.
Myo Min Aung said, “This is my first time personally experiencing an elephant twin birth.
“I’m happy to take care of the little twin elephants, but it’s also a big responsibility.”
(Other than the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
