Land-clearing to sustain an increasing human population is also taking its toll on elephant numbers, according to the edition of the semi-official weekly to be published Monday.

"It is quite evident that the wild elephant population is declining in Myanmar," forest department elephant expert Ye Htut was quoted as saying.

He said that despite the threat of heavy fines and up to seven years in jail hunters had continued killing elephants, upsetting the ratio of males to females in herds and leading to declines in the birth rate.

With about 5,000 pachyderms Myanmar is home to the second largest wild elephant population in Asia after India.

Ye Htut did not indicate how far elephant numbers had fallen but said the department's Nature and Wildlife Conservation Division planned to build four elephant reserves within the next three years as at present there was only one.

However, the paper said in the last several months the junta had allowed state and private logging companies to catch wild elephants in two areas near the capital Yangon on the grounds that they were coming into conflict with people in populated areas.

The state logging firm uses about 4,000 elephants for timber extraction, while the private logging sector uses about 3,000, said Thaung Nyunt, a veterinarian at the state enterprise who specializes in treating elephants.

Elephants have long been used for logging in Myanmar where the terrain is often considered too rugged for vehicles.

The practice -- which is banned in India and Vietnam -- has drawn fire from groups such as the World Wildlife Fund which has warned that taking elephants from the wild to work in the timber industry can seriously effect breeding stocks.

Crude capture methods can also lead to high mortality rate among working elephants, according to the fund.

TERRA.WIRE