Asian elephant cured in rehab of heroin addiction

An Asian elephant that became addicted to heroin atthe hands of illegal traders will return home after athree-year rehab program, Chinese state media saidThursday.

Xiguang, a 4-year-old male Asian elephant, becameaddicted after he was captured by smugglers alongthe Chinese-Myanmar border in March 2005. Thetraders fed the elephant bananas laced with heroin

as bait and to pacify the creature, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

When Xiguang was found two months later along with six other captured elephants in China'ssouthwest, he was suffering from withdrawal and was sent to a protection center in China's tropicalHainan island.

Xiguang received daily methadone injections in doses five times larger than those given to a humanand has now fully recovered, Xinhua said.

He is expected to return to the Yunnan Wild Animal Park in the capital of Yunnan province,Kunming, on Saturday.

The Asian elephant is threatened with extinction, according to the World Wildlife Fund conservationgroup, with only 25,600 to 32,750 left in the wild of Asia's tropical forests _ fewer than a tenth of thenumber of wild African elephants.

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