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.