Origins of Taronga Zoo Elephants in doubt

[Guest guest]

Doubts cast on elephants' origins.. February 25, 2008

Sydney Morning Herald

RENEWED doubts over the legality of Taronga Zoo's importation of nine Asian

elephants have been raised overseas, with documents from Thailand suggesting

that up to half may have been snatched from the wild.

Moreover, the registration certificate for one elephant, the now pregnant Thong

Dee, shows she is just six years and nine months old - despite an animal welfare

requirement that the zoo not use any elephant under the age of 12 for breeding.

 

Last Friday, the Herald contacted the zoo's media relations manager, Mark

Williams, informing him that it had the registration documents in its possession

and requesting the zoo provide alternative documentation to substantiate its

claim that Thong Dee was indeed eight years old.

 

The zoo failed to provide any documentation, instead issuing a media release

stating that the elephant's former owners in Thailand had since reneged on Thong

Dee's age, admitting they had only " roughly estimated " it at the time the

documents were prepared.

 

The next day, the zoo publicly increased Thong Dee's age from eight to between

11 and 12. In The Daily Telegraph on Saturday, her new age was announced, after

a reported dental examination on Friday afternoon by the zoo's elephant

director, Gary Miller.

 

The Herald has commissioned two independent translations of the original Thai

documents, tendered to the Australian government in 2006 to support the case for

the elephants' importation.

 

Both confirmed that Thong Dee's registration certificate, dated December 16,

2003, lists her age as two years and six months at the time of registration.

 

Taronga, which until Saturday was claiming Thong Dee was eight years old, has

been forced to defend the unexpected pregnancy. If the pregnancy succeeds,

however, it will hold the honour of being the first zoo in Australasia to breed

an Asian elephant in captivity.

 

As the story of Thong Dee's rapid graduation from eight to 12 years of age over

the weekend travelled the world over the internet, the ire of overseas experts

was raised once more.

 

Ian Redmond, a wildlife consultant who received an OBE for services to

conservation in 2006, said it was inconceivable that any elephant handler could

be as much as six years out in estimating an elephant's age. " It's like

mistaking a toddler for a 10-year-old child . this is getting silly. The fact

that Thong Dee is pregnant is irrefutable evidence of her being physiologically

capable of reproduction; the question is over her psychological immaturity. "

 

The emergence of the elephants' registration certificates also threatens to

ignite a second international row. Under the Convention on International Trade

in Endangered Species, papers must show a young elephant has been legally

obtained by the exporter. This is usually achieved by identifying the mother and

father, thereby proving the calf has been captive-bred. Yet the documents for

four of the imported elephants give no details of parentage.

 

Will Travers, the British-based president of the Species Survival Network and a

fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, said the Taronga Zoo management's new

claims that its original export documents were unreliable called into question

" the reliability, and therefore credibility, of the entire export process,

[which is] already demonstrably full of holes " .

 

Dr Redmond said the latest revelations raised the possibility the entire

elephant shipment to Australia was wild-born, and called on Taronga to

immediately conduct DNA testing to remove all doubts.

 

Last night the zoo said it had met all Australian and international criteria in

the 2006 export of the elephants. " The Thai and Australian governments ensured

all the animals were born in Thai work camps, " Mr Williams said. " Thai

registration procedures for elephants do not require owners to list parents'

names, so the absence of these names is irrelevant and not illegal. "

 

He said animal activists such as Mr Travers were " simply continuing a vexatious

five-year anti-zoo campaign against a legitimate and internationally sanctioned

conservation program. "