Elephant activists hold up jumbo load

BANGKOK - The controversial shipment of eight young elephants from Thailand to Australia was temorarily abandoned yesterday after animal rights activists blockaded the roads in Kanchanaburi, forming a human chain around the animals' quarantine site.

The protests, a last-ditch attempt to prevent the animal-exhange project, succeeded in delaying the departure of the elephants, which were due to be loaded onto cargo planes at Bangkok airport last night.

It was to have been the first stage of a swap between Thailand and two zoos in Australia.

In exchange, more than a hundred kangaroos and other marsupials were to be shipped to the new Chiang Mai night zoo in northern Thailand, where bush meat features heavily on the menu.

The activists, mostly women and children, camped on the road overnight.

Zoo officials finally agreed yesterday to unload the cages and lead the animals back to Mahidol University's wildlife hospital , where they have been kept for the past 20 months.

"The protesters surged up through the convoy and the elephants got a fright, so we decided to unload them. The elephants looked anxious," Lisa Keen, a zoo spokeswoman, told reporters.

Confined inside container trucks for almost 24 hours in the torrid heat, the elephants were hosed down and fed coconuts and grass while the standoff outside prolonged.

It is now up to the Thai and Australian governments to decide how to proceed, said Ms Keen.

Soraida Salwala, founder of the conservation group, Friends of the Asian Elephant, was one of the hundred activists standing directly in front of eight lorries in order to disrupt the elephants' transferral through Kanchanaburi province, 130 km west of Bangkok.

"I heard somebody shout to go ahead and 'run her over', but I would not move and they finally braked," she said.

"Later, many more animal lovers came out to join us. We are opposed to the export of any elephants from Thailand and suspect that some of these elephant babies were captured in the forest."

A temporary delay, allowing time for officials to determine through DNA testing whether the elephants are domesticated and not illegally poached from the wild, has cost the Australians half a million dollars in plane charter deposits and set back their elephant breeding programme.

Thai officials said that all legalities of the bilateral government deal were already in place, and that they might be forced to expedite the shipment of the elephants with a court order.

They said protesters would have to bear the extra costs of postponing the flight.

Last July, the Australian government agreed to the import of the eight Thai elephants, five of which it earmarked for a deluxe new enclosure at Sydney's Taronga Park zoo and the remaining three for Melbourne's city zoo.

But animal welfare activists in both countries protested at the move, claiming life inside zoos is cruel and puts elephants at risk.

"Taronga Zoo wants to establish the largest elephant breeding centre in the world," Miss Soraida complained.

"They are stealing Thailand's national symbol and in the future they will be using the centre to steal tourists away from Thailand."

Asian elephants have suffered an 80 per cent decline in population over the past century.

Around 100,000 elephants once roamed the kingdom of Siam, yet only 1600 domestic elephants remain in modern Thailand, with about 500 more feral elephants protected in national sanctuaries.

Because domesticated logging or performing elephants are classified as draught animals, like oxen, falsified documents have become a common ruse to evade stricter rules in wildlife trafficking.

Australia's Environment Minister, Ian Campbell, advocates the protection of Asian elephants, and hopes to prevent conflicts with Thai farmers due to a shrinking natural habitat.

"Every attempt must be made to ensure the survival of the species, including through captive breeding programmes," he said.

- INDEPENDENT