The Indian elephant is a subspecies of the Asian elephant and is native to India, Vietnam and Thailand.  Asian elephants are smaller than their African relatives. People in these lands developed special relationships with these Asian elephants and used them for jobs such as logging. After the industrialization of Asia many of the elephant’s natural habitats were destroyed.

Landmines litter Burma where logging is still legal.  Many elephants have died due to stepping on a landmine and many others have lost legs.

Mosha was only 7 months old when a landmine explosion blew off her right foreleg.  If an elephant cannot walk it dies.  Mosha was lucky enough to be taken and rescued by the Asian Elephant Hospital in Thailand.

There was great concern for her survival when she arrived at the hospital because he refused to eat and shunned the company of the other elephants.

A doctor who specializes in human amputations and prostheses met the elephant by chance and decided to create a prosthetic leg for her. He credits the artificial leg as the reason she is surviving and thriving.  With the leg Mosha began eating again and socializing with the other elephants.

Mosha received her first artificial leg back in 2008 . Because Mosha is growing rapidly she has just been fitted with her third prosthetic leg.  The unique elephant leg is constructed out of plastic, sawdust and metal.  It is specially engineered to handle her weight and to help her move as freely as the other elephants.  Mosha will need a new leg about every three years until she is full grown.

Mosha wears her leg all day and it is only taken off when she sleeps.  She is able to walk around, exercise and enjoy her daily life. 

Although Mosha was the first elephant to receive an artificial leg she is not the only elephant that walks with the help of an artificial leg.  Motola lost her leg back in 1999 while she was working at a logging camp.  The area where the camp is located was covered in landmines and they had to amputate her injured foot. She received her artificial limb in 2009.

The landmine issue remains a big problem.  There is some good news however.  It seems that some elephants have adapted and learned how to sniff out landmines and avoid them. In the years immediately following the civil war in Angola the numbers of elephants killed by landmines was very high but the death rate has fallen and in the areas with the heaviest concentration of landmines the elephant population is increasing.

GPS collars are being used to track elephants as they walk through land mined areas and ther results are surprising. Elephants are successfully navigating around the land-mined areas over and over again.

The US Army Research Office was interested in these results and they have been doing additional research with a group of tame South African elephants testing their ability to find traces of TNT among a plethora of other decoy odors and the elephants have passed the tests with ease.

Even so, many elephants suffer traumatic injuries from these land mines. Thankfully, the Asian Elephant hospital and other caring doctors are willing and able to provide elephants like Mosha and Motola with prosthetics now that enable them to live a happy life despite their serious injuries.