Elephant conservation news 15 ? 21 August 1009Those who use elephants to beg on Bangkok's streets face arrest and fines if they fail to present identity documents for the animals, The Nation reports.
Under new regulations, mahouts who fail to present identity documents proving ownership and care of the elephant will be arrested and held by the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration's (BMA) for 30 days, while the owners of the elephants could face a fine of up to the equivalent of around £180.
The measures are part of the BMA's Smiling Elephants initiative, which aims to rescue all the elephants that work the capital's streets within a year.
The BMA also aims to roll out regulations that would require elephants to be registered at birth, rather than at the current eight-years-old, and to prohibit mahouts roaming the city streets with elephants.
Last week, a partially blind elephant used for begging on the city streets was bought for the equivalent of around £5,300 in public donations and relocated to the Thai Elephant Conservation Centre in Lampang under the initiative.
However, while Will Travers from the Born Free Foundation welcomed the BMA's actions "in principle" he told elephant.co.uk news that "it is vital that the Smiling Elephants project is well thought through".
"Simply removing elephants from the streets is not the whole answer," he said. "These animals have to be relocated to spacious, natural environments where they have unrestricted movement, access to the correct diet, the opportunity to socially interact and where their welfare is guaranteed for the long-term.
"Furthermore, these elephants are being bought from their mahouts, and therefore there must be legally-binding contracts in place to ensure that they are not simply replaced, thus stimulating a new kind of elephant rescue trade."
