As tourism plummets in Thailand, elwphants are out of work, too

Collected
Greater than a decade in the past, it was basic for elephant owners to have their family pets into Thailand’s towns and beg found in the streets. Different elephants were set to work by against the law loggers along the border with Myanmar to harvest timber and haul it out of the forest.

Little by little, Thailand succeeded in reducing such practices and enhancing the lives of domesticated elephants. However now, the coronavirus that's sickening humans around the world may threaten to undo that improvement.

A sudden drop in foreign tourists has forced the closing of a large number of elephant parks and similar places of interest, putting more than 1,000 elephants in Thailand unemployed and endangering their futures, operators of the attractions said.

In latest years, the key concern that animal welfare advocates have elevated about Thailand’s many elephant attractions has been whether it's abusive for tourists to ride the creatures.

But for many owners, simply keeping them fed is currently a far more urgent concern. Feeding an elephant can cost up to $40 a day - more than three times the minimum amount daily wage in Thailand.

Theerapat Trungprakan, president of the Thai Elephant Alliance Association, a group of elephant attraction operators, said he feared that unless the federal government intervened, some elephants will be forced again onto the streets or even into illegal logging operations.

“We don’t prefer that loop of survival alternatives another,” Mr. Theerapat said. “It'll endanger the welfare of the elephants, such as getting the elephants roaming the roads begging for bananas or glucose cane.”
Source: https://www.nytimes.com

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