A photo of a baby elephant captured by a camera trap in the Elephant Species and Habitat Conservation Reserve in Quế Phước commune (now Đà Nẵng City). — Photo courtesy of Đà Nẵng Elephant Species and Habitat Conservation Reserve

ĐÀ NẴNG — A wild baby elephant has been discovered in the forest in the Elephant Species and Habitat Conservation Reserve in Quế Phước Commune (formerly located in Quảng Nam Province, which has now become part of Đà Nẵng City), after its image was captured by a camera trap.

Mai Văn Dưỡng, director of the reserve, which is under the management of the Đà Nẵng Special-Use Forest management board, said the baby elephant is the second calf born in the wild since 2020 and is part of a herd of endangered Asian elephants (Elephas maxiumus) living on the reserve.

It's a positive sign of successful reproduction for the herd and for the environmental protection of the forest, he noted.

He said 30 camera traps had been set up at 15 sites in the reserve since early this year, but no elephants were captured on camera in the first collection of photos. However, a second group of photos taken between July 20 and 23 revealed the elephant calf and its mother moving along a forest path.

According to Dưỡng, the elephant protection area was established in 2017 on 18,977ha as part of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)-funded Green Annamites Project.

It is a critical habitat for one of the last groups of Asian elephants, a species listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as endangered. The herd is comprised of eight elephants, including a mature male, one semi-mature male, three mature females and two semi-mature females as well as a one-year-old calf, as noted in the 2020 report.

The detection of the new baby elephant has increased the size of the herd to nine and raises hopes of further growth for the herd in the wild, Dưỡng said.

A report on the results of the largest systematic camera trap survey ever conducted in Southeast Asia noted that only two sites detected Asian elephants living in the wild.

The survey set up 1,176 camera trap stations in 21 protected areas across eight provinces from 2019 to 2023, with support from USAID’s Biodiversity Conservation Activity.

Two elephants living in the Elephant Species and Habitat Conservation Reserve in Quế Phước commune (now Đà Nẵng City). Photo courtesy of the Đà Nẵng Elephant Species and Habitat Conservation Reserve

A photo of a wild Asian elephant was caught by a camera trap in the jungle of Vũ Quang National Park in the central province of Hà Tĩnh in 2023.

After merging with Quảng Nam Province, Đà Nẵng now has more than 5,000sq.km of land, including two nature reserves (Sơn Trà and Bà Nà-Núi Chúa), the world biosphere reserve site of Hội An-Chàm Islands, the National Sông Thanh Park and the elephant conservation reserve.

The reserve is home to 586 plant species, 115 of which are endangered, and 275 animals, including reptiles, amphibians and birds. Some critically endangered and endangered species found living in the reserve include the Annamite striped rabbit (Nesolagus timminsi), the grey-shanked douc langur (Pygathrix cinerea), the giant muntjac (Muntiacus vuquangensis) and the crested argus (Rheinardia Ocellata).

Việt Nam has around 100 Asian elephants living in the wild. — VNS