Elephants of Thailand in Danger of Becoming Extinct

Thailand once having over 100,000 elephants, Now has less than 5000

(PRWEB) August 6, 2004 -- For over 5,000 years elephants have been in the service of man and, until a few centuries ago roamed over much of the planet. At the start of this century there was over 100,000 of them in Siam (Thailand) and the numbers of the Asian elephant species would have been in the millions. Today there are only 3,000-4,000 alive in Thailand amidst a global population that has been estimated as low as 30,000.

Imagine it...in human terms this is less than a soccer game fans at an average home game. Just consider what our world would be like if that was all there were of us ... so few that they could comfortably fit into a sports stadium.

Numbers have declined for a number of reasons, not least hunting but the biggest threat they face right now is through human population growth that encroaches their grazing land. They literally have nowhere left to go.

Coupled with the lack of work for the domestic elephant due to the 1989 logging ban the future looks very bleak for the species indeed.

Fortunately for them there are conservation centers concerned with their plight and devote much of their time to helping them. One of their projects are mobile clinics that goes out to elephants in the forest to administer health care, instructing the mahouts (elephant trainers) on basic health care and diet. Injections and pills are administered when necessary -more often than not- as well as wound cleaning.

Other projects are taking care of old and sick elephants, providing a place where they can live with dignity. There is even an elephant hospital.

Feeding the biggest animal in the world is not cheap: they eat a wheel-barrow of bananas for lunch. Medicine is expensive. These centers are Non Profit Organizations and rely on donations from well-wishers.

Couple of those well-wishers is Paul Thusius of Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Sean Bunzick of Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Mr. Thusius has established his website Save the Thai Elephant located at http://thaielephant.biz. Here is how you can help.

Much elephant information is available at Save the Thai Elephant. You may want to visit daily to read the daily joke, or laugh at the daily cartoon. There are also daily vocabulary, geography, love poem, trivia, and history. Send an e-greeting to your friends and inform them about Save the Thai Elephant.

Mr.Thusius has put together a rather extensive shopping arena of over 100,000 products, with a unique twist of you get paid to shop. A significant portion of proceeds from these sales goes to these Conservation Centers.

Mr. Bunzick is author of fictional southeast asia novels. His first is titled "Missing In Asia," which is available at amazon.com.

Save the Thai Elephant also offers personal tours of Southeast Asia. Mr. Bunzick with his bubbly personality and ability to speak Thai is gladly offering his service to be your tour companion. Tours are customized to what you want to do. One thing you might like to do is spend a day at an Elephant Camp. To visit a camp near a thriving traditional village community, see elephants in their natural habitat, mountain safari, oxcart riding, bamboo rafting and other attractions is practically guaranteed to give you a memorable and exciting day of purpose.

You may take a virtual tour of Thailand and learn more about Mr. Bunzick's tour at http://thaielephant.biz/Sean.

The future of the Asian Elephant is not very good There is less land available and elephants are begging in the cities. They are facing a tough time and if something is not done now, the elephants won't be with us for much longer.

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