In the northern province of Chiang Mai, elephant camps and trekking centres organised buffets of bananas and foliage. At Ayutthaya’s Elephant Palace, the resident 160 pachyderms were treated to a banquet while their human keepers made merit with religious offerings.
In the south, Songkhla Zoo was one of several such facilities to lay on special elephant meals. At Songkhla, conservationists tried to increase public awareness of the welfare of elephants and the fight to preserve the dwindling population of the creatures for posterity. Another one of the activities that made Songkhla’s Elephant Day festivities unique was the chance of writing appreciation notes to the beasts on paper crafted from their dung.
There are about 6,000 elephants left in Thailand today. Around 60 per cent of these are in the wild and visitors often see them lumbering around national parks such as Khao Yai and Erawan.
Thailand honours elephants with nationwide celebrations
News in Asia
Elephant conservation facilities across Thailand paid homage to the royal beasts with various activities yesterday. National Elephant Day is marked on 13 March every year and pays homage to a revered animal that is one of the Southeast Asian country’s three national symbols.