Thailand’s wildlife authorities have efficiently tracked and tagged a 3rd of the wild elephant in the Phu Luang wildlife sanctuary within the north-eastern province of Loei (near the Laos border) attaching a GPS collar which can observe the elephant’s activities after many had left their normal grazing grounds for meals.
The GPS collars are being hooked up to 5 elephants and three have already been fitted, in accordance with the director of the educational centre for wildlife conservation, of the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation, Supagit Vinitpornsawan.
Each GPS collar weighs roughly 10 kilograms or less than 0.2% of an elephant’s body weight. Piece of cake agreed that some elephants may be ‘annoyed’ as soon as the collars have been hooked up and will try to remove it, but that they finally adapt and never even discover the GPS collars.
Elephants that go away their natural environment to hunt for food usually have a tendency to harm crops grown by villagers close to the wildlife sanctuaries or nationwide parks.
“This will lead to conflict between villagers and wild animals.”
The aim is to tag 67 elephants, but since 2018 only 11 elephants had a GPS tracker attached..