Thai Elephants In Danger Of Becoming Extinct

[george]

Elephants of Thailand in Danger of Becoming Extinct

Thailand once having over 100,000 elephants, Now has less than 5000

BANGKOK: -- For over 5,000 years elephants have been in the service of man and, until a few centuries ago roamed over much of the planet. At the start of this century there was over 100,000 of them in Siam (Thailand) and the numbers of the Asian elephant species would have been in the millions. Today there are only 3,000-4,000 alive in Thailand amidst a global population that has been estimated as low as 30,000.

Imagine it...in human terms this is the less than a soccer game fans at an average home game. Just consider what our world would be like if that was all there were of us ... so few that they could comfortably fit into a sports stadium.

Numbers have declined for a number of reasons, not least hunting but the biggest threat they face right now is through human population growth that encroaches their grazing land. They literally have nowhere left to go.

Coupled with the lack of work for the domestic elephant due to the 1989 logging ban the future looks very bleak for the species indeed.

Fortunately for them one lady is concerned with their plight and devotes much of her time to helping them. Sangduen Chailert (Lek) has initiated a programme to look after sick animals. Covering the entire Northern region she travels to instruct the mahouts (elephant trainers) on basic health care and diet. Injections and pills are administered when necessary –more often than not- as well as wound cleaning.

At her elephant camp, there is also the only elephant hospital in the country. Medicine is expensive and most of it comes via donations from well-wishers.

One of those well-wishers is Paul Thusius of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Mr. Thusius has established his website Help Save the Thai Elephant located at http://thaielephant.biz. Here is how you can help.

Much elephant information is available at Help Save the Thai Elephant. You may want to visit daily to read the daily joke, or laugh at the daily cartoon. There are also daily vocabulary, geography, love poem, trivia, and history. Send an e-greeting to your friends and inform them about Help Save the Thai Elephant.

Mr.Thusius has put together a rather extensive shopping areana for you to make purchasers of unique gifts and books. A significant portion of proceeds from these sales goes to Leks Elephant Nature Camp.

When Lek was asked what her view of the future of the Asian Elephant is, her response was: They are not very good I'm afraid, less land available and elephants begging in the cities. They are facing a tough time and if we don't do something now, the elephants won't be with us for much longer.

--Prweb.com 2004-07-24

[rod_kalashnikov]

 

[plachon]

I was at the Chiang Mai Elephant Park in 1997 when one of the "tame" performing elephants suddenly went berserk and killed an Australian tourist who was feeding it bananas at the time.

Regardless of how "domesticated" or "well trained" they are, elephants are still wild animals at heart. If a bull isn't shackled when it goes into high musth, its mahout loses control and nothing short of a .458 WinMag through the forehead will stop its rampage ... and of course you're not allowed to shoot an elephant in Thailand unless it has already killed you.

That didn't stop some sharp shooter cops from trying to kill a bull elephant cleanly that slipped it's chains and went beserk at a Bangkok temple a few years ago. Forget the final toll of bullets it took, but it was in 3 figures, when one well aimed tranquiliser dart would have sufficed. Still made a sanuk diversion from directing traffic on the Expressway I guess.