Police and wildlife
officials raided a Najomtien elephant camp, seizing “Phunzup,” a wild
elephant sold as domesticated using falsified documentation.
Boonlua Chatree
Police and wildlife officials raided a Najomtien elephant camp,
seizing a wild elephant and arresting its owners for illegal
documentation.
Officials from the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant
Conservation and Forest Animals Conservation office joined local,
national and tourist police officers in the Aug. 26 operation at
Elephant Camp Co. in Sattahip’s Moo 3.
Arrested were mahout Ekachai Kanjanaphattrakul and owners Yupha
Rattanawongsawat, 32, and Suphap Sala-ngam, 38. Police also issued an
arrest warrant for Surat Termsak, who sold the elephant from Chaiyaphun
seven years ago.
Wildlife officials also took custody of 47-year-old elephant “Phunzup,”
a wild elephant sold as domesticated using falsified documentation.
The arrest came as Thai officials launched a nationwide crackdown on
illegal elephants, many of which were shipped over the border from
Myanmar with falsified documents.
Fourteen unregistered or illegally registered elephants were taken in
simultaneous raids on tourist destinations in the provinces of Phang
Nga, Phuket and Krabi. Another two were seized in Trat province.
Suphap and Yupha pleaded with officers not to take the animal, which
they said was their sole means of income for their family of six. They’d
paid 400,000 baht to Surat for the elephant, having to borrow money at 3
percent interest from relatives and promise to support two family
members at the Pattaya-area camp in return for the loan.
Since then, the elephant has been used to provide rides to foreign
tourists.
