BORN TO BE WILD

“Elephant World” and “Shipwreck Mystery”

Finale this Wednesday, July 25

 

The world of elephants

 

Elephants are the largest land animals in Asia. In the wild, they travel many miles in family groups. But their great numbers have declined to only a few thousand in the past century.

 

In a sanctuary in Chiang Mai, Thailand, Doc Nielsen Donato meets an unusual bunch of elephants. Baby elephant Boon Long is friendly and plays with Doc Nielsen and the team. But Boon Long’s is a sad story. The baby elephant’s mother was believed to have been caught by hunters, leaving Boon Long wandering on his own. Prized for their ivory tusks, elephants have been pushed to the brink of extinction by the illegal wildlife trade. A large number of them now reside in sanctuaries and live under human supervision.

Even in Chiang Mai, vets and mahouts say releasing elephants back into the wild is not as easy as it seems. Doc Nielsen soon finds out why. He meets an elephant whose leg was blasted off by a land mine buried in the forest. There are many other “land mines” for elephants in the wild – some in the form of poachers who look to sell these giants for their tusks or for their value as domesticated pets. In other cases, loss of forests has driven elephants closer and closer to human settlements and away from their natural habitat.

 

At the end of his journey, Doc Nielsen discovers that world is becoming smaller and smaller for these gentle giants.

 

Pioneer or Mogami Maru?

 

The “Malapascua Six”, a group of experts and technical divers, is on the final stretch of their mission to uncover the identities of shipwrecks lying at the bottom of this part of Cebu’s seas. Mariz Umali and the team have documented three out of four wrecks found in Malapascua’s famed underwater world.

 

But the last wreck – lying a deep 170 feet below sea level – is yet unidentified. Some say it is the “Pioneer Cebu”. Others believe it is the Japanese vessel Mogami Maru. Yet some others believe it may be something else entirely.

 

Time to solve the mystery.

 

Find out in the series finale of “Elephant World” and “Shipwreck Mystery” this Wednesday on BORN TO BE WILD.