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Elephants Still Roam City Streets


george

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Elephants still roam city streets

BANGKOK: Hundreds of elephants are still roaming city streets despite government efforts to keep the jumbos in rural provinces.

Even promises of a Bt10,100 monthly income have failed to attract enough owners to sign up for patrol work in national forests. The Natural Resources and Environment Ministry wants 200 elephants for the work.

“This scheme has received applications from [owners of] 88 elephants only,” said Preecha Ratanaporn, director of the Wildlife Protected Area Management Division. To attract more, Minister Prapat Panyachatraksa recently rescinded the condition that elephants must be older than 15, he added.

The Elephant Foundation yesterday said it had found 504 elephants –more than half aged between one and five – roaming Bangkok and adjacent provinces.

“In 2003, we found 301 young roaming elephants whose origin remained unclear, raising our concerns that they might have been smuggled out of forests. To get young elephants, their mothers must have been shot dead first,” said vet and board member Alongkorn Mahannop.

--The Nation 2004-03-04

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Please do everyone (the elephants included) a favor and never give money to the cruel mahouts who selfishly bring their long-suffering beasts to Bangkok. A worse environment for an elephant can scarcely be imagined. If the mahouts can't torture their animals here, maybe they will be more ready to accept work in the forests.

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ANOTHER FAILED TOXIN LAW

Even Thai people don't listen or abide to his word. No wonder he is becoming the laughing stock on the international stage!!!!!!!

http://www.thaivisa.com/index.php?514&backPID=58&tt_news=649

Thaksin ban elephants from Bangkok City 13-12-03

“It creates lots of problems,” Thaksin said. “It’s dangerous and it makes a mess of traffic. Bangkok’s traffic problems are a squeeze already.”

Vagrant Elephants Banned from City

BANGKOK: Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who has long vowed to clean up Bangkok’s traffic-clogged streets, today targeted one group of suspects behind the mess: vagrant elephants.

Elephants brought in from the countryside cause traffic problems and should be banned from the already congested capital city, Thaksin said in his weekly radio address.

Scores of domesticated elephants – estimates range from 60 to 250 – roam Bangkok streets with their handlers, begging for food or promoting the sale of ivory trinkets. They sometimes get hit by vehicles or fall into drains.

Many of the pachyderms, extensively used for logging, were made redundant by a 1989 ban on the industry.

Thaksin said financial backers purchase elephants and then rent them out to the tourist-tout handlers.

“It creates lots of problems,” Thaksin said. “It’s dangerous and it makes a mess of traffic. Bangkok’s traffic problems are a squeeze already.”

He said he had told the Interior Ministry and the Bangkok Metropolitan Authority to “not let elephants into Bangkok”.

In recent years the city has launched several short-lived elephant crackdowns. In January, officials announced they would strictly enforce 11 bylaws barring elephants from city limits, and increased the penalty for those bringing the animals into the city to four years in jail and a 100,000 baht fine – up from a 500 baht fine and no jail term.

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If you stay long enough in the Kingdom everything will change. Remember the rule about a helmet per motorcycle rider, headlights on at all times, no rock music from outside of Thailand and countless other decrees that have fallen by the wayside. If you can wait long enough all things change. That is the only constant

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poor elephants

this is a man made problem

first

man hunt animals

then man cut trees

and destroy animal's home

now

animals have no home

and no more free land and trees

so if you can't beat them

join them

that's why the animals are in town

why complaint

all you need to do

is to give their homes

back to the animals

or else kill them

excuse me ???

can't do that ???

than live with it

and bear the problem...

poor animals...

and when the forests and the animals are gone

the next round will see mankind dying like rats...

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ANOTHER FAILED TOXIN LAW

Even Thai people don't listen or abide to his word. No wonder he is becoming the laughing stock on the international stage!!!!!!!

http://www.thaivisa.com/index.php?514&backPID=58&tt_news=649

Thaksin ban elephants from Bangkok City 13-12-03

“It creates lots of problems,” Thaksin said. “It’s dangerous and it makes a mess of traffic. Bangkok’s traffic problems are a squeeze already.”

Vagrant Elephants Banned from City

BANGKOK: Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who has long vowed to clean up Bangkok’s traffic-clogged streets, today targeted one group of suspects behind the mess: vagrant elephants.

Elephants brought in from the countryside cause traffic problems and should be banned from the already congested capital city, Thaksin said in his weekly radio address.

Scores of domesticated elephants – estimates range from 60 to 250 – roam Bangkok streets with their handlers, begging for food or promoting the sale of ivory trinkets. They sometimes get hit by vehicles or fall into drains.

Many of the pachyderms, extensively used for logging, were made redundant by a 1989 ban on the industry.

Thaksin said financial backers purchase elephants and then rent them out to the tourist-tout handlers.

“It creates lots of problems,” Thaksin said. “It’s dangerous and it makes a mess of traffic. Bangkok’s traffic problems are a squeeze already.”

He said he had told the Interior Ministry and the Bangkok Metropolitan Authority to “not let elephants into Bangkok”.

In recent years the city has launched several short-lived elephant crackdowns. In January, officials announced they would strictly enforce 11 bylaws barring elephants from city limits, and increased the penalty for those bringing the animals into the city to four years in jail and a 100,000 baht fine – up from a 500 baht fine and no jail term.

Exactly...he sure finds it hard to pick a winner :o

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