Year of publication 2005

This manual represents the latest collaboration in a long and fruitful relationship between the Forest Industry Organization of Thailand and the FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific to improve the conservation, management and welfare of the Asian elephant. The English edition is a mirror version of the Thai language edition. The Thai edition is intended primarily for men whose education rarely extends beyond four years and whose understanding of science (and thus hygiene, disease, etc.) is particularly poor. The aim of the book has been to enable mahouts to better support the work of veterinarians, not to do the veterinarian's job. The three primary goals are to help mahouts come to quicker diagnoses, to better communicate symptoms to veterinarians over the phone and to improve care in follow up. An underlying goal has been to encourage prevention of diseases and conditions occurring through paying more attention to food, appropriate work and hygiene. Besides mahouts, the second important audience for this book is camp managers. Some camp managers are quite knowledgeable about elephants while others are simply administrators. Given their control over food, budgets, work assignments, etc., camp managers often have more influence over elephants' health than do the mahouts themselves. Finally, it is hoped that this manual, besides improving the care and welfare of the Asian elephant, will help outsiders more clearly see the elephant health care problems facing both Thai mahouts and managers.