#’Jungle Doctor’ helps legless elephants with new limbs

Here’s an elephant with a little more pep in his step.

Australian veterinarian Dr. Chloe Buiting, aka the Jungle Doctor, is cherished among animal lovers on social media for her work with elephant amputees, which has revealed to many viewers that, yes, animals big and small need accessibility, too.

Footage captured at the Friends of the Asian Elephant Hospital in northern Thailand, the world’s first elephant clinic and manufacturer of pachyderm prosthetics, shows 7-month-old elephant Mosha being fitted for her prosthetic leg, which she lost due to a land mine at the embattled border between Myanmar and Thailand.

“I’ve shared a bit with you about the use of prosthetic limbs in elephants, but have you seen how they are put on?!⁣” she asked her 166,000 followers in the caption of a recent post featuring Mosha. The rudimentary appendage uses a belt and ratchet system at the socket, leading to a rubber pad at the foot.

A follow-up clip features Mosha taking her prosthetic limb for a stroll, and also showcases the hospital’s elephant limb factory. “Asian elephants can live well beyond 40 years in the wild, and Mosha was just at the start of her young life,” she said.

Buiting also points out that the largely Buddhist community who operates the clinic is determined to preserve life.

“While euthanasia for such an injury may be considered as an option in many places around the world, in Thailand, where a large percentage of the population follows Buddhism, it is not so readily discussed or practiced,” Buiting wrote.

“The hospital does groundbreaking work that helps elephants who have lost their legs from landmines,” Buiting told Australia’s 7NEWS in a recent interview.

“It gives the elephants quality of life that they otherwise wouldn’t be able to have,” she added.

The Friends of the Elephant Hospital and Buiting also announced last September that they were seeking a biomedical engineer to join a project to help develop more advanced prosthetic limbs for elephants.

“No prior experience with animals is necessary (although an interest in the cross-over of human and animal health is good!),” she wrote.

Buiting and the elephant clinic are doing important work in a region that has been devastated by war for decades. Last year, land mines in Myanmar were responsible for 69 deaths and 185 injuries, according to a recent UNICEF report, a large portion of which were children.

Thousands of people across some 60 countries were killed or maimed by land mines and other explosive remnants of war, according to annual report by the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. Of the 164 signing nations, Myanmar is one of the few countries that is not part of the international Mine Ban Treaty of 1997. Meanwhile, land mine contamination in Thailand is considered “widespread,” according to the ICBL, with at least 124 square miles of “confirmed” or “suspected hazardous area.”