In case you thought only African Elephants needed to fear poachers and ivory dealers, please read the following excerpts from a June 18, 2009 article by Sarah Janicke:
“Thailand has consistently been identified as one of the world’s top five countries most heavily implicated in the illicit ivory trade, but shows little sign of addressing outstanding issues,” said Tom Milliken, of TRAFFIC, which oversees a global monitoring programme, the Elephant Trade Information System (ETIS), for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
While much of the ivory is illegally imported from Africa (thus coming from African Elephants, not Asian Elephants), the ivory workshop owners reported ties to European knife makers and U.S. gun shops. But that isn’t the only illegal trade happening in Thailand.
The study also uncovered reports of traders buying wild-caught elephant calves for use in Bangkok as “beggars” on the streets in major tourist centres, or selling them to elephant camps and entertainment parks.
Hundreds of live elephants are known to have been illegally imported from Myanmar in recent years, to be sold to elephant trekking companies catering to adventure tourism in Thailand. The capture of wild elephants has been banned in Thailand since the 1970s, but such trade usually goes undetected because domesticated elephants do not have to be registered legally until they are eight years of age.
For more information, please read the rest of the article here.
-Windy Borman
Producer, Writer and Director, The Eyes of Thailand
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