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dirtydog

March 13 in Thailand is celebrated as Elephant Day and on Saturday the Nong Nooch Gardens tourist attraction held a commemoration ceremony which was addressed by Khun Nitti, the Director of the Tourist Authority of Thailand.

The usual speeches were followed by a brief religious ceremony, a traditional dance by a troupe of dancing ladies and the sprinkling of scented water on elephants and assembled guests by a man wielding a small piece of shrubbery.

Once the formal ceremonies, involving ribbons and pairs of scissors were completed, the elephants performed a few tricks to the delight of onlookers.

These included a basketball demonstration, modern art painting and hacking away at a giant cake with a rather large knife.

After all this exertion the elephants were permitted to binge away on bananas and other culinary delights as reward.

The elephant is the national animal of Thailand and Elephant Day was officially designated in May 1998 by the government.

It is now estimated that Thailand’s elephant population has dropped to not more than 4,000, down from an estimated 100,000 at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Mid

Nong Nooch joins effort to release 81 elephants into wild
Patcharapol Panrak
Friday, 22 April 2011

Nong Nooch Tropical Garden is helping restore Thailand’s wild elephant population by allowing 4 female elephants to be brought to Nong Nooch to be bred with its male elephant population. The 4 female elephants had been kept at Nong Nooch’s Elephant Reintroduction Foundation, which is working to release 81 elephants into nature.

On April 11, Nong Nooch Director Kampol Tansatcha and Sattahip District Chief Chaichan Iamcharoen announced their intent to allow the foundation to breed the elephants for release.

Director Sumet Tantiwetchakul said the organization was founded in 2007 in response to Her Majesty the Queen’s vision for Thai Elephant preservation, and to mark HM the King’s 80th birthday.


Mahouts bring in a pair of elephants to put on display during the announcement.

The goal is to provide 81 elephants to present to Her Majesty the Queen to return to the wild.

Nong Nooch’s 33-year-old Bird and 17-year-old Nongnong will play a big part of that, being the main sperm donors to the project.

Elephant cows average only 1 calf every four years and each pregnancy runs 22 months.

Nong Nooch currently has 41 elephants in its stables, 36 of which are female. Of those, five are pregnant.

Park officials said they were proud to be part of such a noble effort to restore the wild elephant population.






























This article was published in the Pattaya Mail newspaper on Friday April 22, 2011 (Vol. XIX No. 16).

pattayamail.com

Nong Nooch Tropical Garden , see also :

http://teakdoor.com/thailands-travel...ong-nooch.html (Pattaya - Nong Nooch)

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