Jumbo protest a Thai problem: Aussie zoos
A protest by animal rights activists that prevented eight elephants from being transported from Kanchana-buri to Australia was Thailand's problem, an Australian zoo official said yesterday.
Laurie Pond, elephant programme manager of Melbourne Zoo, said: "It is not really Australia's problem, it's Thailand's problem. It is not up to us to solve the problem - it is for the Thai government to solve."Both the Thai and Australian governments, as well as an Australian court, favour the project. It is a mystery to me why I am still here." Pond, Garry Miller and other Australian zoo keepers have been in the elephants' quarantine camp at Mahidol University's Livestock and Wildlife Hospital since September 2004. A blockade by Thai conservationists, led by Soraida Salwala of the Friends of Asian Elephants Foundation, prevented the jumbos being transported to Australia on June 5. The Australian Embassy yesterday organised a one-day trip for the media to visit the camp for the first time and interview those directly involved with the project. Pond, who initiated the project and selected the elephants, said DNA tests requested by conservationists would not be conducted on the elephants since it was not a criterion of the Memorandum of Understanding between Thailand and Australia in 2004. Miller, elephant manager of Taronga Park Zoo, which plans to house five of the jumbos, said he was confident the elephants did not come from the wild, as many local conservationists suspect. He said he had known the owners of the elephants "for years". Lisa Keen, communications manager of Taronga Zoo, said Australia had asked the Thai government to facilitate the transport of the jumbos. But she declined to give more details or the date of the transfer. Thailand's Foreign Minister Kantathi Suphamongkhon asked protesters recently to discuss their problems with him, but they refused. A source from the Australian Embassy said the zoos might sue conservationists over the blockade, which caused a loss of Bt49 million, including the fee for a cargo plane. The Australian media recently reported that Taronga Zoo had asked for donations to support the transport of the elephants. Zoo director Guy Cooper was quoted as saying that donations were in exchange for photographs and the chance to meet the jumbos and their keepers. Yesterday's media event was arranged just weeks before five koala bears arrive in Thailand. They are one of 21 wildlife species Australia offered to Thailand on "permanent loan" in exchange for its "permanent loan" of the elephants. The koalas are due to arrive at Chiang Mai Zoo in about two weeks. However, the plan has drawn protests from Australian conservationists. Pennapa Hongthong The Nation Kanchanaburi
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