New move to get elephants off Bangkok streets
Posted on: March 16th, 2009 by Peter Headley
www.bma.go.th
To commemorate National Thai Elephant Day, a new scheme aimed at moving elephants off the streets of Bangkok was announced by the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA). The national day honouring elephants falls on 13 March each year.
For years, the capital has faced the problem of elephants roaming the streets. Now, under the auspices of the Smiling Elephant project, any elephant in the city without written permission will have a microchip embedded underneath its skin. Mahouts, or elephant keepers, are required to have authorization to bring their animal into the city.
Unauthorized elephants will be provided shelter until they can be sent to their home province, according to Bangkok’s Deputy Governor Teerachon Manomaiphibul.
The secretary-general of the Friends of the Asian Elephant Foundation, Soraida Salwala, noted that there are currently around 200 elephants on Bangkok’s streets, all begging for food from passers-by. Mahouts sell bags of food to the city’s residents to feed the elephants. According to the secretary-general, the elephants risk disease and accidents in the city.
“We’ll rush to survey the exact number of begging elephants going around the city before embedding some of them with microchips. The BMA will collaborate with military organisations with bases in Bangkok and the State Railway of Thailand to provide areas for them and their mahouts to stay before being sent back home,” Bangkok’s deputy governor said.
Thanks to www.nationmultimedia.com for the above quotes, for more information on this article please visit their website. www.bma.go.th
