User:Postdlf/EPMP
The Elephant Population Management Program is a non-profit organization that performs vasectomies on wild bull elephants as a method of addressing overpopulation. The EPMP was established as a non-profit corporation based in Colorado in November 2009, and obtained 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status the following year.[1]
The organization is managed by an eight-member board of directors and a seven-member Scientific Advisory Board, on both of which sit Americans and South Africans.[1] The program is underwritten (?) by Disney's Animal Kingdom.[2]
The EPMP developed its policy of performing vasectomies on bull elephants as an alternative to culling.[2] Male elephants are shot with a tranquilizer dart and intubated, before being moved by truck to a mobile surgical site. A section of the vas deferens is removed, the incision is closed, and a radio collar is placed on the bull to monitor his health for six months to a year. The elephant is given pain medicine, antibiotics, and an anesthetic reversal agent that has it back on its feet within five minutes.
http://www.elephantpmp.org/who-we-are/our-history.html: concept developed by Dr. Mark Stetter, Director of Animal Health at Disney's™ Animal Kingdom; Dr. Stetter recruited Dr. Dean Hendrickson, Professor of Equine Surgery at Colorado State University...help him develop the surgical technique.