A Good Innings (I suppose) for the largest of them all....
...this dropped off the newswire some time ago and so I suspect you've already seen it, despite 70 years being a very good innings for a wild elephant I have to admit I was sort of hoping the largest of all Asians could be spotted in the interim.
Nepal is a land of giant elephants, at least when compared with our short legged boys and girls, but Raja Gaj was something else, something so large as to intrigue such luminaries as Sir John Blashford Snell into researching the possibilities that the giant and his kin were perhaps throwbacks from another age.
The Scientific Exploration Society's researches took place before the current craze to label every isolated population a distinct species and, if I recall correctly, were inconclusive - but spawned a book and a documentary starring Rula Lenska, briefly making him not only the largest but the most famous Asian elephant on the planet - even now, I note, he has a place on 'unexplained mysteries' style websites, claiming for him the dinosaur status the SES were unable to prove (though, I suspect the SES carry a greater burden of proof).
During the recent conflict in Nepal Bardia National Park, Raja Gaj's home, fell into Maoist territory and - though the Young Maoist League, post conflict, appear to have proven effective protectors of the wilderness, or at least arresters of poachers - it appears, now that the counters and the tourists can return, that this time was hard on the wildlife populations.
This said, of course, nature may well have taken it's course on the old man of the jungle.
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Nepal is a land of giant elephants, at least when compared with our short legged boys and girls, but Raja Gaj was something else, something so large as to intrigue such luminaries as Sir John Blashford Snell into researching the possibilities that the giant and his kin were perhaps throwbacks from another age.
The Scientific Exploration Society's researches took place before the current craze to label every isolated population a distinct species and, if I recall correctly, were inconclusive - but spawned a book and a documentary starring Rula Lenska, briefly making him not only the largest but the most famous Asian elephant on the planet - even now, I note, he has a place on 'unexplained mysteries' style websites, claiming for him the dinosaur status the SES were unable to prove (though, I suspect the SES carry a greater burden of proof).
During the recent conflict in Nepal Bardia National Park, Raja Gaj's home, fell into Maoist territory and - though the Young Maoist League, post conflict, appear to have proven effective protectors of the wilderness, or at least arresters of poachers - it appears, now that the counters and the tourists can return, that this time was hard on the wildlife populations.
This said, of course, nature may well have taken it's course on the old man of the jungle.
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World's biggest Asian elephant missing in Nepal
Reuters
5 December 2007
KATHMANDU (Reuters) - What is thought to be the world's largest Asian elephant has been missing from a Nepali wildlife reserve for a year and may well be dead, a reserve official said on Wednesday.
Raja Gaj, or king elephant, was estimated to be 11 feet 3 inches tall at the shoulder, some two feet taller than the average Asian elephant. The bull was one of the main tourist attractions at Bardia National Park in southwest Nepal.
"When I saw it last it was lean and thin, and finding it difficult to carry its own weight," Phanindra Kharel, a senior conservationist at the park, said.
Raja Gaj is, or was, more than 70 years old.
"There is very little possibility of finding such an old animal alive."
Kharel said he could not be sure if Raja Gaj had been killed by poachers, an illegal but common activity in the region.
He said he would ask colleagues in India this month if the elephant had wandered over into a nature reserve on the other side of the border.
There are about 250 Asian elephants -- an endangered species -- in the Himalayan nation, about 100 of them are domesticated and used for elephant polo and safaris in national parks.
I would like to no how i can get more info on Raja gaj??
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Dear Terry
A trip to Bardia National Park in Nepal will help you to see his descendents and learn of his legend, my old friends West Nepal Adventures run a Lodge and Tented Camp down there - www.tigermountain.com - and can show you around.
From home, the book produced from the S.E.C. expeditions was called Mammoth Hunt: The Search for the Giant Elephants of Nepal by Col. John Blashford-Snell and Rula Lenska.
Hope this helps.
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