Cash for elephants

The foundation can now afford to buy 18 elephants for Bt300,000 to Bt1 million apiece, he said, adding that so far two mahouts in Bangkok and 10 in Surin had contacted the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration about selling theirs.

However, Soraida Salwala, head of the Friends of the Asian Elephant Foundation, pleaded with owners not to overprice their elephants, as asking prices had averaged Bt1.3 million to Bt1.5 million.

"This makes the problem more difficult to solve," she said.

Soraida said she had also been asked by mahouts in Surin to request the government issue a universal exemption for all elephants from having to have microchips embedded under their skin or be registered. She said an exemption could be granted only to owners who could document their elephants' genealogy, so as to prevent owners of smuggled beasts from sneaking through.

Sukhumbhand vowed the streets of Bangkok would be elephantfree in less than a year. He was speaking at a ceremony to dispatch police patrols in search of wandering pachyderms.

A patrol later found two elephants, whose owners agreed to sell them to the foundation.