BANGKOK (AP) – Among the millions of Thais who became unemployed because of COVID-19 are elephants, who depend on tourism to satisfy their voracious appetites. The solution? Send them to pasture.
In the face of a shortage of foreign visitors, the commercial camps and elephant sanctuaries lack funds for their maintenance and have sent a hundred of their animals on foot back to their habitats, 150 kilometers away.
The Save the Elephant Foundation, in the northern province of Chiang Mai, has promoted the return of elephants to their homes. The foundation raises funds to continue feeding the pachyderms in tourist parks, but believes that it should also be returned to their homes, where they can be self-sufficient.
The situation is critical. The London-based World Animal Protection organization says some 2,000 domesticated elephants are at risk of starvation because their owners have no means to feed them.
Since last month, a hundred elephants have marched from Chiang Mai to their birthplace in Mae Chem, where the ethnic Karen minority, traditional elephant breeders, live.
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