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Article: A home for orphaned pachyderms; Sri Lanka's disappearing icons win legal right to a 'full belly.'.(World)(A Letter From)
- Article from:
- The Christian Science Monitor
- Article date:
- February 8, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 The Christian Science Publishing Society. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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A skinny nut-brown mahout, or elephant driver, picks out a young calf bathing with a herd in the Maha Oya River in central Sri Lanka.
Daha, - "come" - the mahout says to the two-year old female, named Suppumalee. "Suppumalee, daha," he insists. The animal leaves her morning social engagement, and lumbers over. She, like the others squirting and splashing in a muddy festival of trunk touching - lives in this "elephant orphanage" in the town of Pinawalla.
Suppumalee came here after she fell in a village well. Here, with about 60 other elephant orphans, Suppumalee is given milk, gourmet tree branches, and a name. Her caregivers are mahouts - a special caste ...