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'Addicted' elephant heads back to Kunming after cure

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-09-04 11:46

KUNMING -- An Asian elephant who became addicted to drugs after eating a banana smeared with heroin is headed back to Kunming after a three-year detoxification program in China's southernmost Hainan Province.

The 4-year-old male elephant, Xiguang, became addicted in March 2005.

He was among six elephants lured by animal smugglers along the Sino-Myanmar border. They used the bananas as bait for the animals, which were being brought into China's Dehong Autonomous Prefecture of Dai and Jingpo nationalities.

Police captured the elephants on May 8 that year. Xiguang was sent to a  wild animal protection center in Hainan three months later, after he was confirmed to be suffering from withdrawal symptoms.

Rehabilitation experts and vets gave him injections of methadone, at five times human doses, for a year. Xiguang fully recovered after rehabilitation.

Xiguang is expected to arrive at the Yunnan Wild Animal Park in the capital city of Kunming on Saturday after a 1,500-km journey home.

The Asian elephant is the largest land animal in Asia, with an estimated 50,000 living in the wild throughout the continent.