User:Postdlf/EPMP

__NOINDEX__ 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.

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. The program is underwritten (?) by Disney's Animal Kingdom.

The EPMP developed its policy of performing vasectomies on bull elephants as an alternative to culling. 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.