Hematological Value of Captive Elephants (Elephas maximus) Around Chitwan National Park, Sauraha, Nepal

Abstract

Veterinary hematology serves as an important screening procedure to assess general health condition, diagnosis, and treatment of disease. The study was aimed to interpret and establish a set of hematology reference range for Asian elephants kept under private and government facilities of Nepal as no major work has been done till now. Blood samples from 50 elephants around Chitwan National Park, Sauraha was collected and hematological parameters like total erythrocyte count and total leukocyte count were determined. The results showed that the majority of hematological value was in line with the value previously published by different authors. The mean erythrocyte and leukocyte count was reported as 3.32 ±0.93 ×10^6 cell/µL and 10448±335.49 cells/ µL respectively. No sex-associated significant difference was observed in the case of total erythrocyte count whereas total leukocyte counts varied significantly within sex. Our finding revealed no significant difference in hematological parameters between governmental and privately owned elephants. The hematological value of our study can be used as a reference value for assessing the health condition of elephants in Nepal. Further research work should be conducted to evaluate the factors affecting hematological parameters.