After years of exploitation and struggle, Bangladesh is giving its elephants a second chance. A new government project aims to free the country’s captive giants, once forced into circuses, tourist rides, or back-breaking labor, and return them to the wild. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.

Asian elephants ( Elephas maximus ) once roamed widely across southern Asia, through the forests of the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia to parts of China and possibly western Asia. Today, their range has dwindled dramatically, limited to fragmented populations in just over a dozen countries, including India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Thailand, Myanmar, Malaysia (Borneo), and Indonesia (Sumatra).

Bangladesh also has a small but signifi

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