Hematological value of captive Asian Elephants Elephas maximus around Chitwan National Park, Sauraha, Nepal

Abstract

Veterinary hematology serves as an important screening procedure to assess general health conditions, diagnosis, and treatment of disease. This study aims to interpret and establish a set of hematology reference ranges for Asian Elephants managed by private and government facilities in Nepal. Blood samples from 50 elephants around Chitwan National Park, Sauraha were collected and hematological parameters such as total erythrocyte count and total leukocyte count were determined. The results show that the majority of hematological values were in line with the values previously published by different authors. The mean erythrocyte and leukocyte counts were 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 sexes. Our findings revealed no significant difference in hematological parameters between government and privately owned elephants. The hematological values from our study can be used as reference values for assessing the health condition of elephants in Nepal. Further research work should be conducted to evaluate the factors affecting hematological parameters.