April 27, 2011
Today we drove back from Ha Giang to Hanoi. After spending a couple of hours at my favorite hotel catching up on emails, it was on to the airport for a flight south to Ho Chi Minh City. Tomorrow, my colleague Hiep and I will travel to Dong Nai Culture and Nature Reserve, where six elephants have been found dead in the last three years. The elephant deaths are most likely the result of retaliation killings, as the elephants that live in and around the reserve have been raiding people’s crops and homes for food – and have even killed some people in the process! The reserve staff have asked if Denver Zoo would like to become involved in the human-elephant conflict mitigation efforts currently being planned and I am here to see how we might be able to help.
April 28, 2011
We spent most of the day today touring a village located just on the outskirts of Dong Nai Culture and Nature Reserve. The elephants had spent the last 3-4 days raiding crops like mango and cashew trees. It would be one thing if they just ate the fruits off the trees, but the raids unfortunately entail much worse damage. While eating the fruits, it is most common for elephants to break huge branches off the trees or even more often, knock over the entire tree. Elephants also enter people’s homes at night and raid their rice storage bins – breaking down walls and sometimes trampling entire homes to the ground. The government does what it can to pay restitution for lost crops or stored rice, but these home invasions rightfully scare the local people right down to their bones.
May 5, 2011
After returning from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi, I spent a few days writing reports about my trip, organizing my receipts, catching up on emails, talking to my family via Skype, and meeting with colleagues. There were holidays on Monday and Tuesday this week, so no one was working and many of the
