NEWS - Thai Elephant Playful After

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Subject: NEWS - Thai Elephant Playful After Surgery

Thai Elephant Playful After Surgery

 .c The Associated Press

By BUSABA SIVASOMBOON

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - A playful Motola the elephant was recovering
faster than expected today from surgery to save her mine-shredded foot.

For the first time in the two weeks since Motola arrived at the elephant
hospital in Lampang, 317 miles north of Bangkok, she was showing no
signs of pain today, said Preecha Puangkham, director of the Hang Chat
Elephant Hospital.

``She's been eating a lot of bananas and sugar cane this morning,''
Preecha said. ``She is in a very good mood and is starting to play with
everything around her.''

Motola, a 38-year-old cow elephant, was foraging for food at a logging
camp inside Myanmar's border with Thailand - scene of decades of
insurgencies - when she stepped on a land mine. The blast destroyed her
left front foot, but animal experts operated Saturday to remove the
damaged parts and hope to fit the elephant with a prosthetic device so
she can walk again.

The explosion that crippled Motola has drawn new attention to the
brutality sometimes inflicted on elephants in this region.

Environmentalists say that in Thailand and neighboring countries, one
common practice is the killing of wild cow elephants to capture their
calves.

Around 200 elephants a year are sent from Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia to
Thai tourist spots, Preecha said. Most are calves.

To get them, mothers are gunned down or seriously hurt falling into
traps, Preecha said.

Surapol Duangkhae, deputy secretary general of Thailand's World Wildlife
Fund branch, said elephants are viewed as a tourist commodity, trained
to perform in shows or beg for donations in the streets of Bangkok,
where they are frequently struck by cars.

Small elephants are preferred because ``they are cute and easy to
train,'' Surapol said.

The sale price for calves can reach nearly $7,000 - twice the average
annual wage in Thailand.

Other elephants are used as pack animals in logging operations. In
Motola's case, blood tests showed that her owner had kept her fueled on
amphetamines prior to the blast to make her work harder. The practice is
common.

Soraida Salwala, the founder of Friends of Asian Elephants Fund, said
the government should enforce a law to protect elephants and
rehabilitate the forest area - a necessity because deforestation is
robbing elephants of their habitat.

``Otherwise, we will see the heartbreaking scenes of elephants in pain,
like what we have seen on television for several days now, again and
again,'' she said.

AP-NY-08-31-99 0908EDT