SUDAN:International wildlife experts have located hundreds of wild elephants on a treeless island in the swamps of south Sudan, where they apparently avoided unchecked hunting during more than 20 years of war.
"We flew out of a cloud and there they were. It was like something out of Jurassic Park," said Tom Catterson, working on a US-funded environment programme in south Sudan. Environmentalists are keeping the location of the island in the Sudd area secret to prevent poachers from killing the animals.
Meanwhile, in eastern India, and also demonstrating a remarkable adaptability and instinct for survival, an elephant has sparked complaints from motorists who accuse it of blocking traffic and refusing to allow vehicles to pass unless drivers give it food.
Sudan's north-south civil war ended with a 2005 peace agreement that gave the south semi-autonomous status, but experts say game hunting is still unchecked despite a five-year ban on hunting to allow wildlife to replenish.
Environmentalists are only now beginning to discover the extent of the damage on animal populations and are looking for additional pockets where animals could not be reached by rebels or armed groups looking for meat and export products like tusks.
It is possible there are other herds of elephants hiding out in the Sudd, an area so flat the Nile River breaks up into hundreds of channels and lakes.
"It's not that good a habitat for elephants, but they're free of people shooting at them," Catterson said on Sunday. "You and I wouldn't stand a chance in there between the mosquitoes and crocodiles - and you'd get lost."
Although Sudan is banned from exporting elephant tusks, it is still easy to purchase ivory carvings in Khartoum's famous Omdurman market. The Sudd is also host to a wide variety of fish, birds, amphibians and reptiles.
The Hindustan Times reports that the Indian elephant was scavenging for food on a road in the eastern state of Orissa, forcing motorists to roll down their windows and get out of their cars.
"The tusker then inserts its trunk inside the vehicle and sniffs for food," local resident Prabodh Mohanty, who has come across the elephant twice, was quoted as saying.
"If you are carrying vegetables and banana inside your vehicle, then it will gulp them and allow you to go."
If a commuter does not wind down his window or resists opening the vehicle door, the elephant stands in front of the car until the driver allows him to carry out his routine inspection.
Forestry officials told the newspaper that the elephant is old and is therefore looking for easy food.
"So far, it has not harmed anybody," said Sirish Mohanty, a forest ranger . - (Reuters)