Bangkok Elephants To Be Embedded With Microchips

[george]

Elephants to be embedded with microchips

BANGKOK: -- Elephants roaming Bangkok streets will soon be embedded with microchips, which will alert relevant authorities as soon as the giant pachyderms step out of their designated areas.

The microchip embedding is the latest effort to keep elephants from Bangkok's traffic lanes.

"We expect to implant microchips in up to 200 elephants," Deputy Bangkok Governor Thirachon Manomaipiboon said Thursday.

-- The Nation 2009-04-23

[webfact]

I always thought the previous Bangkok administration had implemented a law that Elephants are not allowed to "roam" the streets of Bangkok...?

[AyG]

And they are going to place sensors on every road leading out of Bangkok to detect the passage of a chipped pachyderm?

Please forgive my scepticism.

[Loaded]

The one-government NWO is a step closer.

[sensei]

Why use microchips?

These animals are gigantic!

A satellite dish won't be a problem to these gentle giants.

It will be easier to spot them that way.

Edited April 23, 2009 by sensei

[doggie888888]

There is a commission for these microchips? If an elephant drops dead in BKK, surely someone will call the police with the location, and you aint gonna miss the grey mass on the ashphalt. As for wandering off, why dont they microchip the Mahoot too?

Instead, I suggest microchipping ALL soi dogs, and while they are it, de-sex them all. Surely someone can arrange a suitable commission for the decison maker? More dogs more commission?

Secondly, and the more difficult question, is why are there poor elephants in a congested high density URBAN concrete jungle anyway?

[animatic]

There is a commission for these microchips? If an elephant drops dead in BKK, surely someone will call the police with the location, and you aint gonna miss the grey mass on the ashphalt. As for wandering off, why dont they microchip the Mahoot too?

Instead, I suggest microchipping ALL soi dogs, and while they are it, de-sex them all. Surely someone can arrange a suitable commission for the decison maker? More dogs more commission?

Secondly, and the more difficult question, is why are there poor elephants in a congested high density URBAN concrete jungle anyway?

I foresee an animal down in the street and left there for days,

as they wait for one of ONLY three sets of CHIP READING machines

in Bangkok to be sent to the site to verifu that this is Elephant X

and it is indeed not living and can NOW be removed.

2 days waiting was to FIND the trained machine reader, likely on Koh Samet with mia noi,

and 1 day for him to remember where he left the box in the store room.

Meanwhile the law mandating their use says don't move the pachaderm till it is verified.

Or some other blinding lack of logic...

Yes, there would be an appropriate backhander somewhere down the line...

I wonder WHICH administration wonk set this boondoggle in motion?

[borios]

<quote>Why use microchips?

These animals are gigantic!

A satellite dish won't be a problem to these gentle giants.

It will be easier to spot them that way.

</quote>

dang it... that was going to be my joke good one!

Edited April 23, 2009 by borios

[phaethon]

There was a funny letter in the Bangkok Post the other week which sympathized with the police's inability to deal with elephants. It ended with something along the lines of "(the police) cannot be expected to have the necessary specialist training to detect a five ton animal on the streets of Bangkok " :D

[borios]

i belive it... they don't have the training to enforce basic laws either besides, the standard tactic of holding their hand out for the pay off would just result in a wet trafic glove

[oevna]

And they are going to place sensors on every road leading out of Bangkok to detect the passage of a chipped pachyderm?

Please forgive my scepticism.

Probably not. A cheaper solution would be to have one sensor in the area where the elephant is supposed to stay, which will alert "authorities" as soon as the beast wanders far enough away from it. Another solution would be to surround the area where the elephant is supposed to stay with sensors that detect when it gets close to them.

[caf]

i belive it... they don't have the training to enforce basic laws either besides, the standard tactic of holding their hand out for the pay off would just result in a wet trafic glove

Brilliant reply. Can anyone on thaivisa do a cartoon of that!! I can't get the image of a bib in that situation out of my mind. This is satire at its best

[Scott]

This is the typical solution to the problem of not enforcing the law. Some years back, a law was enacted (and I assume it was passed) that elephants could NOT be in the city. Of course it didn't apply to the outlying districts which for a time had a great deal of the animals. But the law was not enforced, so now all elephants and their handlers are breaking the law, but rather than deal with that, they will microchip them and do what??? Enforce what law???

Now add a bit of intelligence and human nature and you can see why the yellows and reds were able to hold the city hostage with relative ease.

As the nursery rhyme goes:

"....And all the king's horses

and all the king's men,

couldn't put Humpty Dumpty

together again."

[Beacher]

The one-government NWO is a step closer.

Ahhh, yes...now I see. First we microchip the animals then the people.

Sure hope you're not correct, but I have heard that in Texas there is a law in the works requiring that ALL animal are chipped, and many people are concerned that it's only a warm-up to people being next.

RFID and NWO do seem to be often discussed together.

(Okay, now let's hear all the "tin hat" comments.) LOL

[phaethon]

They did disappear from the entertainment areas a few years ago, after a 'crackdown' but have slowly sneaked back (if an elephant can be said to sneak...)

What Bangkok needs is more mice to scare the elephants away

Of course it could be a cunning scheme by the BIB based on that Simpson's episode (based on a real story) where Homer is invited to collect a prize speedboat but it turns out to be the police who nail him for several hundred traffic tickets.

The BIB put out the word that there is a FREE microchip for every elephant (doesn't matter that it's a microchip, the important word is FREE), give an address in Central Bangkok and then just wait for the tea-money to roll (walk) in.

Edited April 24, 2009 by phaethon

[Scott]

What does RFID and NWO mean?

[phaethon]

RFID - Radio Frequency Identification (Tracking and Management) as used by some companies to monitor the location of their sales reps vehicles or security vans like Wells Fargo, also valuable consignments.

NWO - New World Order

RFID + NWO = Orwellian Conspiracists' wet-dream.

Edited April 24, 2009 by phaethon

[RickBradford]

Technically, this suggestion is nonsense (assuming The Nation got it right). Microchips are passive, or inert, RFID devices and contain no internal power source. They are designed so that they do not act until acted upon.

The normal way to check where someone is, is by 'electronic tagging' which uses an active device (usually an ankle tag) attached to the person which automatically reports back to a central location (basically it sends an SMS to the police station).

RFID, which this story seems to be about, requires a scanner to be brought to the passive microchip to check its details (a similar system is used in some hi-so nightclubs in Barcelona -- for people, not elephants).

So the idea of implanting passive microchips to monitor the whereabouts of the elephants is technically a non-starter.

Ear tags or a collar would be the way to go, and yes, you can tell if the device is tampered with or removed.

[Langsuan Man]

You all are missing the point. This is just another scam to give a government contract to another company that can't do what they are paid for

Like the ID card fiasco

Or the Etest for school admissions

and the list goes on and on

[phaethon]

Perhaps the intention is not to monitor the whereabouts of elephants (in real time) but to reliably identify them - like the implanted ID tags for cats and dogs - so that some kind of enforcement officer can scan an animal in their area and determine if they have a right to be there and fine them if not - that is they are devising a licence scheme

[phaethon]

Maybe it's linked to this from the BP yesterday:

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/1555...lephant-exports

'Chipping' elephants, like dogs and cats, could help differentiate those from legitimate sources from those poached from the wild population. It would not just apply to Bangkok elephants of course, but someone could have got the wrong end of the elephant.

[Scott]

If it's a money making scam, it's a rather poor one. There aren't that many elephants in BKK. You'd hardly get a Mercedes out that project.

[Cuban]

You normally chip something that is small and not easy to see.

Elephants are difficult to miss!

[Gary A]

They have to chip dogs, cats and elephants because those animals refuse to pay off the police. The chips are to identify the owners so they can make the payoffs.