Meet the first two elephants to have been fitted with prosthetic legs after they were seriously injured when they stepped on a landmine in Southeast Asia.
Mosha and Motola, living at the Asian Elephant Foundation in northern Thailand, both lost their legs more than a decade ago when they were calves.
They made headlines a few years ago when they became the first and second elephants to be fitted with prosthetics, but surgeons have to design new and stronger legs for them as they get older.
Mosha received her ninth prosthetic on Wednesday.
She was just seven months old when she stepped on a landmine along the Thailand-Myanmar border ten years ago.
She was taken to a hospital affiliated with the Asian Elephant Foundation and has been in their care ever since.
Two years after her accident, surgeon Therdchai Jivacate gave her new legs and a new life. As she has grown, he designed new, longer and stronger legs for her.
Therdchai, 72, said of Mosha before receiving her latest leg: ‘The way she walked was unbalanced and her spine would bend. ‘She would have d.ied.’
Mosha, who weighed only 600 kg when she was given her first prosthetic limb, now weighs more than 2,000 kg.
Motala stepped on a landmine 16 years ago. She became the second elephant to be fitted with a prosthetic leg after Mosha.
The nature of her trauma and growth meant she was uncomfortable with her prosthetic, according to the Asian Elephant Foundation hospital.
Established in 1993, the facility was the world’s first elephant hospital and currently has 17 patients.
The Thailand-Myanmar border is still littered with landmines left over from clashes between ethnic minority rebels and the Myanmar army that date back decades.
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