Elephant hurt by mine to get artificial leg

Motola, a female elephant who stepped on a landmine 10 years ago and endured painful operations, was fitted today in Thailand for a permanent artificial leg.

The 48-year-old elephant became a symbol of the plight of today’s elephants, and her injury sparked international sympathy and donations.

Experts were making a cast of her injured left front leg for a plastic prosthetic limb which will be attached tomorrow.

“I do hope she will accept the new leg. It would be wonderful to see Motola and Baby Mosha walking together side by side,” said Soraida Salwala, secretary general of the Friends of the Asian Elephant, a non-governmental group.

Mosha, also a landmine victim, became the world’s first elephant with an artificial leg, attached in 2007. Soraida said Mosha, now three, was doing well and had outgrown three of her prosthetic devices.

Both elephants have been cared for at the Elephant Hospital in Thailand, set up by Soraida’s group in 1993.

The world’s first such facility, the hospital has treated thousands of elephants for ailments ranging from eye infection to gunshot wounds.

Traditionally the truck, taxi and logging worker of Thailand, the elephant has lost most of its jobs to modernisation.

One saving grace has been the tourism industry, which employs large numbers for elephant trekking and other activities.

Motola was injured in 1999 while working at a logging camp along the Burma-Thailand border, a region peppered with land mines after half a century of insurgency.

Her mangled foot was amputated, and she hobbled on three feet until fitted with a temporary, canvas shoe-like device two years later.

Motola’s initial operation used enough anaesthetic to floor 70 people – a record noted in the 2000 Guinness Book of World Records.

“It has been 10 years now, but in all these long years Motola enjoyed a happy life, walking out of her shelter for a sun bath,” Soraida said.

Soraida said Motola has otherwise been in fine health, with her once bony frame now weighing more than three tons.

The artificial leg has been constructed by the Prostheses Foundation, which also makes cheap but effective artificial limbs for human amputees.