Photo Courtesy of AP

The Chang Yim ( Smiling Elephant ) project was set up by the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration to remove roaming elephants from Bangkok’s city streets and get them back to their natural enviroment or a close proximity thereof.  The BMA is taking aim at Bangkok’s mahout’s who drive these gentle beasts throughout the city to beg for coins and perform tricks for tourist dollars.

As you can see by the picture above city streets are no place for an elephant of any size. The baby elephant above was being walked through the city of Rayong when it stepped into an open manhole. fortunately the baby elephant was rescued,  without harm,  after a few hours and with the help of a bulldozer to dig a pit big enough for him to walk out of.  Unfortunately the Baby elephant gets to go back to it’s life of slavery begging for money.

The Chang Yim project in Bangkok aims to remove all elephants from Bangkok within one year. They made their first big step yesterday with the purchase of Pang Bua Kham, a 30 year old elephant that is blind in one eye. Pang Bua Kham’s owner, a Bangkok mahout, was paid 300,000 baht ( roughly $8000.00 ) for the elephant who will be transported to the National Elephant Institute in Lampang where it will live out the rest of it’s days in peaceful surroundings. The hope is that some elephants, at least the younger ones, can be re-introduced to their natural habitats while the older elephants will be found suitable homes at places like the National Elephant Institute.

The BMA believes that most of Bangkok’s roaming elephants can be purchased from their owners for 300,000 baht each and to this end they have set up a bank account with Krungthai bank to accept donations for this cause. In a little over a week the bank account has already received 800,000 baht ( roughly $24000.00 ). Donations can be made to Krungthai Bank account No.088-0-03418-1.

This of course is a small solution to a very large problem. Elephants are used in every major city by their owners to make a living through tourist dollars. Hopefully the BMA efforts in Bangkok will be successful and catch on in other cities so this problem can finally be one of the past. Until that day there will be more stories like the Baby elephant story above and sadder ones like the elephant that died last week in Chonburi province when it walked into a low hanging live electric line and was electrocuted.

If you plan on visiting Thailand and run into these gentle giants on the streets of Bangkok or any other city please resist the urge to pay for the experience of feeding them or taking a picture with them. They are beautiful creatures but there are much more humane and suitable places where you can get to know the elephants of Thailand better.