[TH] Thailand sets up nursing home for elderly elephants

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Thailand sets up nursing home for elderly

elephants

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BANGKOK - Thailand has set up its first nursing home for elderly elephants

in Lampang province, already the home of two elephant hospitals, media

reports said Tuesday.

 

The Pang-La Nursing Home for Aged Elephants will be officially opened Nov

21, in Ngao district of Lampang, 490 km north of Bangkok, the Bangkok Post

reported.

 

Situated on a 153-hectare plot with its own small river for elephant

bathing, the shelter will be operated by the Forest Industry Organization

(FIO), which also runs the Elephant Hospital in the province.

 

Lampang has another pachyderm hospital operated by the Friends of Asian

Elephants Society, a private charity.

 

“We already have about 30 old and disabled elephants at the shelter,” FIO

chief Manoonsak Tantiwat said. The nursing home will be able to handle up to

200 pachyderms when operating at full capacity, he added.

 

The nursing home will take care of the elephants “until their last breath”,

Manoonsak said.

 

Thailand has more than 2,000 domesticated elephants, which were previously

used as beasts of burden in the country’s forestry industry but are now

jobless, as a result of government bans on logging.

 

In recent years, elephant owners have shifted to the tourism sector and

begging in Bangkok to earn money off the massive mammals, that were once the

national symbol gracing the flag when Thailand was still called Siam.