NGO blocks shipment of elephants to Australia

BANGKOK, June 28 (TNA) – A Kanchanaburi wildlife conservation group announced that it won't negotiate with the government and waits for the result of DNA testing to verify whether the Australia-bound elephants are home-bred or from the wild.

The Kan Conservation Group has blocked the shipment of eight elephants to Australia on the grounds that the elephants may have been captured from the wild and may have difficulties adjusting to life in captivity.

Mrs. Pinan Chotirosseranee, head of the group, said Kan is not prepared to negotiate a concession with Foreign Minister Kantathi Suphamongkhon.

The opponents stood by their demand that the government conduct DNA test to determine the origin of the pachyderms.

Mrs. Pinan said Kan has received no news regarding the DNA test--despite the promise made through the mass media by Environment Minister Yongyut Tiyapairat that he assigned the National Park,Wildlife and Plant Conservation Department to expedite testing two weeks ago.

The pachyderm activist leader said that to her knowledge no tests have been conducted on the eight elephants and they have not left the veterinary hospital in the Kanchanaburi campus of Mahidol University.

"We are quite concerned about the training effort to reacclimatise these elephants by training them to eat bread, peel pineapples," she said.

"Elephants normally eat 100-200 kilogrammes of fruit and [wild] vegetation every day. With a new diet, they won't last longer than 20 years compared to the average lifespan of 70-90 years in the Thai forests," the activist said.

TNA