2 Men in California Indicted on Ivory Smuggling Charges
Two Thai nationals were finally indicted in Federal court on Tuesday for a large scale ivory smuggling operation discovered in 2006. Moun Chau, 50, and the owner of a California doughnut shop arrested in 2006 when customs officials discovered 4 African ivory tusks in a shipment bound to him that was labeled toys. His Accomplice Samart Chokchoyma, 36, was apprehended in Thailand after the Royal Thai Police started an investigation on the smuggling.
Unfortunately people still want to buy ivory and as long as there are buyers out there then this will be an ongoing struggle to keep the elephants alive and the smugglers in jail.
Apparently they were selling the tusks and art carved from ivory tusks on Ebay. Ebay has since stopped the sale of ivory on it’s site since January of 2009, a little late but better late than never.
Another Elephant Electrocuted in Pattaya
Picture Courtesy Pattaya Daily News
What is it going to take to stop this madness and get these poor animals off of city streets?
Mr. Uay Yuirum [61], stated that on the day in question, as he was riding his elephant Pung Saegjaun [50] in the rain to the Nern NaJomtien Elephant Camp in Sattahip, for her monthly check at the back of the elephant camp, he felt a surge of electricity through his leg and was thrown of his elephant onto a grass verge at the side of the road. At the same time as he was thrown, he felt his elephant shudder before she fell by the side of a high voltage electricity post.
The story goes on to tell of the poor mahout’s woes because he bought the aged elephant for 800,000 baht and still owes 700,000 baht for the now dead beast. Yes, we should feel sorry for those using and abusing these poor animals now.
Apparently the elephant stepped on an exposed grounding rod on the side of the street, which leades to my second big pet peeve when it come to Thailand…Qualified electrical work and electrical standards…THERE ARE NONE. An exposed grounding rod should not electrocute anything but the way Thai electricians do work they most likely ran a feeder to it and put it on the circuit instead of grounding it. I would bet more people die in Thailand yearly from faulty electrical work than in highway accidents, I could be wrong but I bet I’m not far off.
Thailand really needs to get it’s act together concerning both the treatment of elephants and their electrical standards. Maybe Thailand should go back to third world status until it can figure it all out.
There has been no new news from the Bangkok based Chang Yim-Smiling Elephant project that was to buy elephants from the mahouts and get them off city streets. After an initial purchase news has faded. The one place you can help is by going to the Friends of the Asian Elephant site and making a donation to help get Thailand’s elephants into a safe and secure habitat where they are well taken care of.
Site news: Thailand Event Calender Added
After struggling to keep track and track down information on upcoming events in Thailand I finally broke down and added a calender to the site. You’ll be able to look up everything from Thai festivals to rock, blues and jazz concerts as well as all the other big events going on in Thailand. The events are color coded and it should be easy to find out what is going on and when.
You can hover over events for a brief description or click on the individual events and be taken directly to the organizers home page or another page describing the event.
I’ll be adding events as they come up and as dates become available so hopefully it becomes a useful tool.
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