Dont feed the Elephants and see what happens to you

Classic case, where refusal will get u hurt !

http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/au ... 5971116959

I don't especially like the elephants being brought into tourist areas in this way.
However, elephants live a long, long time. At least some of these elephants must originally been working beasts & they & their owners have been thrown out of jobs because the world has changed. I am not sure what an elephant owner could do in those circumstances. They are, obviously, not low maintenance items to own & fail badly when compared to mechanical devices as a work device or means of transport. Not exactly the sort of thing you can just abandon 20 miles from home or tie in a weighted sack & chuck in the nearest river, either (animal welfare reasons aside ).
There really does not seem to me to be much of a 'second business opportunity' for them as the serious tourist trade is well taken care of by places like the Elephant Nature Park in Chang Mai.

Still does not justify attacking people who don't want to participate though & I still don't like the elephants put into these sort of environments...but it did set me thinking...

He could have Politely said no thank you and been on his way. Lecturing some poor Bugger who is trying to put Food on the Family Table is just bad manners IMO !!

I remember reading somewhere elephant owners were offered around 10,000 baht per month compensation from the government in exchange for their elephants. The plan was to take elephants off the streets and send them various forest camps around the country where they would be taken care of and live in natural surroundings.

Apparently the elephant owners refused compensation because they could make more money on the streets. At 20bt per miniature bag of sugar cane or bananas I can understand why.

I could not find that story Lee, the only one that I could find was..

Residents face B10,000 fine for feeding elephants

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/1 ... -elephants
Which is rather the other way round!!

However I did find this quote in an article about the Chang Rai Elephant camp, referring to mahouts & their elephants ex the streets of Bangkok.

The foundation provides them with shelter, food and pay.....The foundation, in the compound of Anantara Resort Golden Triangle in Chiang Saen district of Chiang Rai, pays him 15,000 baht a month to "rent" his elephant.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/learning/lea ... al-setting

Which suggests that I was wrong & an alternative (& not badly paid one either) does exist.

Last week Monday evening, I have see 1 Elephant, Soi Nana Thai, So ...

Frans.

BobHelm wrote:I could not find that story Lee, the only one that I could find was..

This was a couple of years back now so I can't remember the source.

The BP link you posted sounds like a more attractive alternative for the elephant owners.

I vaguely remember that ,Lee.Don't remember the source either,but remember thinking that I hoped it would happen!

In recent years, the government of Surin province has launched an "Elephant Kingdom" project to get the elephants out of the cities and back to the countryside, where the Kui are expert at raising them.

The project centers on Ta Klang village, near the confluence of the Chi and Mun rivers -- a favorite elephant bathing spot. The region is home to about 600 elephants. In Ta Klang, elephants and humans live together, the pachyderms in pens outside the Kui's wooden houses, which sit on stilts to avoid flooding during the monsoon months.

The project pays mahouts the equivalent of $265 a month for each elephant that they keep out of the cities. Krittipon Sala-Ngarm, who manages the village's elephant study center and is a distant relative of Meu Sala-ngarm, says he realizes this is not much money.

Thai Elephants Return Home From Concrete Jungles
http://www.scpr.org/news/2011/01/03/tha ... e-jungles/