Tougher times for Thai elephants

Tougher times for Thai elephants

David Longstreath

BANGKOK (AP): Elephants were once big magic for Thais.

At the turn of the century, an estimated 100,000 roamed the
countryside. They played a major role in everything from art to
language and were revered. Thai temples are adorned with Ganesha,
the elephant Hindu god.

Today, elephants are treated more like oversized curiosities
in a carnival show than with the respect they used to command.
And there are only about 5,000 to 6,000.

The occasional home for one, Kham Moon, a 31-year-old female
elephant, is a debris-strewn lot off one of Bangkok's busiest
boulevards.

She spends much of the time tethered to a rusting chain,
grazing peacefully under the shade of a large tree. Her mahout,
or keeper, Supoj Salangam, 22, drapes himself inside a mosquito
net while napping. The drone of six lanes of traffic and the roar
of jetliners taking off from Bangkok's airport fill the humid
air.

It is a long way from the teak forest where Kham Moon once
worked pulling logs. But with logging banned in Thailand since
1990, there is no work in the forest for Kham Moon and her
keeper.

Now they wander the back streets and alleys of Bangkok
offering tourists and residents a chance to pet the giant and
feed her bananas or string beans for a small fee.

"It is hard work," Supoj says as he washes Kham Moon's back
with a borrowed water hose. "But it helps us survive. I can at
least afford food for my elephant."

Elephants have been banned in Bangkok for the past year, so
Supoj and other elephant owners are constantly on guard watching
for the police.

Supoj spends about 20 days each month in Bangkok with his
elephant and the rest at his home in Surin. It costs him about
10,000 baht (US$280) for a truck to make the roundtrip from
Surin, about 340 kilometers (210 miles) from the capital.

Many guidebooks list Bangkok, a city of about 10 million
people, as one of the most congested in the world. And not even
an elephant causes the crush of traffic to slow, so crossing the
six lanes of Sukhumvit Road is a risky venture for Supoj and Kham
Moon.

Other elephants have been struck by automobiles or have
slipped into sewer drains. The result is almost always been the
same: The elephant has to be destroyed.

Some evenings Supoj and other mahout take their elephants to
work the crowds in the notorious Soi Cowboy nightclub district,
whose blaring rock music and glowing neon draw tourists seeking
an unconventional holiday.

It is a surreal scene of bar girls, street vendors and
elephants. Tourists accustomed to seeing elephants only in zoos
get the chance to touch and feed them.

Here, Supoj and Kham Moon usually do well on the pocket change
from tourists and others who still believe the elephant is big
magic.