Begging Elephants

[eric1000]

Asian Elephants: The New Beggars of Bangkok

News Feature, Andrew Lam,

Pacific News Service, May 11, 2004

Editor's Note: The Asian elephant, loved and revered in Thailand, is disappearing from the country. Though tamed and employed for various purposes -- logging, warfare, transportation -- throughout the nation's history, there isn't any space left for it in modernizing Thailand. Some owners now take the beasts into large cities to beg for food.

BANGKOK, Thailand--It's not uncommon in this city of 7.2 million to see an elephant and its mahout, or trainer, lumbering along in traffic, sometimes causing a traffic jam. No, it's not part of a traveling circus. Elephants come to almost every major urban center in Thailand begging for food.

The Asian elephant may still be a revered cultural icon in this country, gracing bas-reliefs of temples and ancient paintings of battle scenes, but it is woefully underemployed. Worse, in a country whose civilization was more or less built on the elephant's back, the mighty creature is fast disappearing. More than 100,000 existed at the beginning of last century. At the beginning of the 21st, there are less than 5,000 -- 2,000 of which are still in the wild.

Classified as an endangered species, the Asian elephant is expected to disappear from the country altogether -- except perhaps in zoos -- around 2050.

There are many reasons why the elephants are disappearing, but the main culprit is deforestation. For domesticated elephants in Thailand, deforestation means no more jobs. Logging in Thailand's forests has long relied on the strength of the powerful pachyderms. An elephant can pull half its weight and carry 600 kilos on its back. In hilly countryside where roads are small and inaccessible to trucks, an elephant is indispensable for the timber business. But logging is all but illegal now in Thailand, and the domesticated elephant, it seems, is out of luck.

An average elephant weighs 11,000 pounds and consumes more than 26 gallons of water and 440 pounds of food a day. That's why their owners consciously curb breeding among the captive beasts, bringing down their number even farther.

Many owners, left with no other choice, have now turned their elephants into urban beggars.

"I feel bad for the elephants," says Silvy Tongurai, a tour guide who loves feeding the beasts. "Some get hit by trucks because drivers can't avoid them in time."

The news is worse for the wild elephant. Only about 15 percent of the country is still forestland, and those patches are scattered about. Many wild elephants resort to raiding farms for crops, where they are often shot or poisoned by subsisting farmers. It's the story of miserable beasts pitted against impoverished humans.

The lucky ones end up at Baan Pang Lah Nature Reserve, near Chiangmai, one of a handful of national parks in the country. Home to 40 elephants, the reservation comes complete with a hospital for injured pachyderms. Dr. Sarun Sansiswate, 32, the main veterinarian, keeps track of all his wards -- one has a broken back, another's leg was amputated after a landmine explosion, some have been shot by poachers -- but he says resources are ebbing as needs increase. When asked why a Bangkok-born man would end up working in a nature reserve, he smiles and says, "I think Thai people owe it to the elephants for their contributions to our culture. But we need more donations to keep up with the demands of saving them."

In a modernizing world, where more people now live in urban centers than in rural areas, where brute strength has been replaced by machines, the elephant is becoming irrelevant.

And so, in the end, the economics of keeping an elephant may be the major factor determining whether it will survive until the next century in Thailand. Illegal logging is still practiced at the Thai-Burmese border, where an elephant can still be employed -- albeit in perilous conditions where landmines abound, and under intense, exhausting work.

Tourism may be key to the animal's survival, with elephants taking foreign visitors on faraway jungle treks to experience for what's left of the natural world.

There is a myriad of creatures not so well loved or well known as the elephant: pangolins and flat-nosed bears and hawksbill turtles and kouprey ox, plus a hundred-thousand other species, large and small and wondrous, all classified as critically endangered. If the Asian elephant -- as important to the Thais as the bald eagle is to Americans -- cannot be saved, what chance is there for other wildlife?

It is late afternoon at Baan Pang Lah, and a dozen elephants are performing for the park's visitors to earn their keep. A few play xylophones, others engage in a game of soccer and two even paint in distinct, abstract styles. Then, amid cheers and applause, they line up trunks-to-tail and form a convoy, a typical motif depicted on Chinese-carved ivory tusks. They walk out of the visitors' view, fading slowly back into the trees.

PNS editor Andrew Lam, ([email protected]) recently traveled extensively in Thailand.

Comments

Peter Stanley on May 13, 2004 04:08:04, said:

A very informative article. Thanks. Is land so scarce in Thailand to keep the government from declaring more space for national parks or 'elepant orphanages'? Reintroducing these captive elephants into their natural/wild habitat could be a major tourist attraction, thus paying for itself. This is what tourist want to see, nature, not a zoo. If humans can take that 'nature' away through deforestation and poaching, we can surely create the habitat again through conservation efforts.

Regards Peter Stanley Biology Teacher and Conservationist Iringa, Tanzania

ps. I'm moving to Thailand in August 2004 to teach science at the Concordian Int. School and would love to learn more about the region and conservation activities I can involve my students in. Any relavent information would great. Thanks.

[megashox]

Hey you must be wrong. Thai's dont beg - not even our animals!

[Bad News]

Your confusing asking for subsidies with begging.

[seville]

Eric there are number of different Non-Profit's in Thailand that are trying to help Elephants. Something to be aware of is that often the places that take tourist trekking are working their Elephant to death. I mean this literally.

I volunteered at two centers over the last two years.

One is Wildlife Friends of Thailand www.wfft.org

The other The Elephant Nature Park www.thaifocus.com/elephant/

[RDN]

Hey you must be wrong. Thai's dont beg - not even our animals! 

Must be Cambodians or Vietnamese on the walkways over Sukhumvit Road.

[Axel]

Somehow I do like these beasts in downtown Bangkok. It brings an atmosphere.

If the mahout can get more money and food, why not.

Traffic? Different problem, they don't have stop lights.

[LaTanne]

I am an animal lover and even hate to go to the zoo; therefore, to see elephant walking on the hot cement roads in BKK is killing me.

I went to the Elephant hospital in Lampang a couple of months ago and cried a bucket as seeing a baby elephant lose the feeling on both legs because of falling down the mountain while following his mum. He will undoubtedly get bigger every day so pretty soon the robe/chain that hangs from the celling to support his body is not going to support his weight any longer. The mother, bless her heart, was still nursing him.

[RDN]

Somehow I do like these beasts in downtown Bangkok. It brings an atmosphere.

If the mahout can get more money and food, why not.

Traffic? Different problem, they don't have stop lights.

When they disappeared from Sukhumvit Road in September last year (if my memory is right), I could not have been more happy. They block the pavements, block the traffic, everyone has to walk in the street around them, you get smacked on the head by their tail if you're not careful, they poop everywhere and the guy with the mahout is trying to sell bread rolls at rediculous prices so the tourists can feed the elephant. Good riddance to the mahout and his mate - I wish they could get a proper job and take the elephant back where they found him (or her). Poor animal

[fisherman]

I was cornered one night by a rough herd of bull elephants, they were on a mugging spree, one even had a switch blade! He had a bit of trouble opening it with his massive feet, but once he got it out I was scared to death, he was slashing about wildly with it, I quickly handed over all my cash and a couple of bits of sugar cane I had in my pocket too... nasty memories

[Axel]

fisherman, whereabout did you come across this herd of pachyderms?

It sounds a bit like 1:30 am around Sukh Soi 23 in downtown BKK. You should have abandoned your last drink, walked under an elephant's belly for good luck and have bought some food.

[maerim]

I was cornered one night by a rough herd of bull elephants, they were on a mugging spree, one even had a switch blade! He had a bit of trouble opening it with his massive feet, but once he got it out I was scared to death, he was slashing about wildly with it, I quickly handed over all my cash and a couple of bits of sugar cane I had in my pocket too... nasty memories

I'll have whatever he's been drinking.

[fisherman]

Well I saw that without the Thaivisa 7 there quality of humour had dropped so had to inject a little.

FREE THE THAIVISA 7