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- An overweight elephant dubbed “the loneliest in the world” has arrived in Cambodia.
- The elephant was previously in Pakistan, and animal rights groups requested that the elephant be removed from its previous conditions.
- Musician Cher was part of a team that welcomed the elephant.
An elephant dubbed “the world’s loneliest” landed in Cambodia on Monday from Pakistan, receiving a warm welcome from American superstar Cher, who will accompany him to a sanctuary that houses potential mates.
The case of Kaavan, a 36-year-old overweight bull elephant, sparked a worldwide uproar from animal rights groups, who called for him to move from an Islamabad zoo accused of poor care and conditions.
His cause was fueled by a lively social media campaign by Cher, who traveled to Pakistan to fire him.
Wearing a black mask, the singer was present at Siem Reap airport and enthusiastically greeted the plane after it landed around 09:30.
“I am very proud that I am here,” she told AFP, after greeting Kaavan through an opening in the base of the box.
“She is going to be very happy here,” Cher said, adding that she is hopeful that her ordeal is over.
Kaavan’s long-awaited trip was “uneventful,” said Amir Khalil, a veterinarian with the animal welfare group Four Paws, adding that he behaved “like a frequent traveler.”
Stressed
“Kaavan was eating, he was not stressed, he even slept a little, standing up, leaning against the wall of the box,” he said.
Once the only Asian elephant in Pakistan, Kaavan will be transported from Siem Reap to neighboring Oddar Meanchey province, where a wildlife sanctuary with around 600 more elephants will be his new home.
“Cambodia is delighted to welcome Kaavan. It will no longer be ‘the loneliest elephant in the world’,” said Deputy Environment Minister Neth Pheaktra.
“We hope to breed Kaavan with local elephants – this is an effort to conserve the genetic fold,” the minister told AFP.
Before being transported to the shrine, the monks offered him bananas and watermelon, chanted prayers, and sprinkled holy water on his box to bless him.
Kaavan’s trip is the culmination of years of campaigning by animal rights groups, who say the animal’s behavior in captivity demonstrated “a kind of mental illness” likely due to the dire conditions at the zoo.
In May, a Pakistani judge ordered that all the zoo animals be moved.
Upon learning of Kaavan’s release, Cher tweeted that the decision marked “one of the best moments” of her life.
A team of veterinarians and experts from Austria-based Four Paws have spent months working with Kaavan to prepare him for the trip, a complicated process due to his size and the amount of food required along the way.
The elephant also had to be taught to enter the huge metal box that was placed on a cargo plane for the seven-hour flight.
Four Paws, along with Islamabad authorities, also safely removed three wolves and some monkeys from the zoo. Currently only two Himalayan brown bears remain, a deer and a monkey.
