Asian Elephant completes Heroin detox
An Asian Elephant has completed rehab after becoming addicted to heroin giving by wildlife traders.
The four-year-old animal, called Xiguang, received methadone injections for a year at five times the human dosage, state media said.
It was illegally captured by traders in 2005 in south-west China.
When police arrested the traders and freed the elephant, it was found to be suffering from withdrawal symptoms.
The elephant’s eyes kept streaming and he made continuous trumpeting noises, the Beijing News newspaper’s website reported.
It is thought that the traders fed the elephant bananas laced with heroin to capture and control it.
