Animals
Thailand’s king supports treatment of elephant Sak Surin
A vet gives water to the elephant Sak Surin. photo
© Nareerat Chaywichain/AP/dpa
In Thailand, even the king now wants to support the treatment of elephant Sak Surin, who was abused in Sri Lanka. Meanwhile there is concern for another pachyderm – he has disappeared.
The nearly 30-year-old bull was a gift from the Thai government to Sri Lanka in 2001. In the two predominantly Buddhist countries, elephants have religious significance.
In former Ceylon, however, Sak Surin was mistreated in a temple by a mahout (elephant guide) and also had to do hard labour, animal rights activists complained. Now he is in the Thai Elephant Conservation Center in Lampang province in northern Thailand. He is able to lie down and get up on his own, the minister said. But veterinarians diagnosed abscesses on both hips and cataracts in one eye during an initial examination. In addition, the left front leg is stiffened.
The elephant will be quarantined for 30 days. The interest is so great that the center streams live footage of the gray giant on Facebook twice a day, with tens of thousands of people following. In August, Sak Surin will then be brought together with other elephants.
Elephant Pratu Pha has disappeared
Meanwhile, there are concerns about another elephant that Thailand gave to Sri Lanka in 1988 as a diplomatic gesture. The pachyderm named Pratu Pha also lives on a temple site. After the drama about Sak Surin, a team of Thai experts wanted to carry out a routine check. However, this was canceled by the abbot of the temple, said Kanchana Silpa-archa, an advisor to the Ministry of the Environment. “So far we have no idea where the abbot took the elephant,” she was quoted as saying by the media.
Authorities suspect the temple’s monks fear that Pratu Pha could also be brought to Thailand. The embassy of Thailand in Sri Lanka is entrusted with the case, it said.