AUSTRALIA: Five Asian elephants receive Buddhist blessing on their first day in a Sydney zoo.

Record ID: 185070

  • Title: AUSTRALIA: Five Asian elephants receive Buddhist blessing on their first day in a Sydney zoo.
  • Date: 15th December 2006
  • Summary: BUDDHIST MONKS BLESSING ELEPHANTS
  • Embargoed: 30th December 2006 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Australia
  • Country: Australia
  • Topics: Nature / Environment
  • Reuters ID: LVAAHZOBX17CF9ZHD04O8WIN2V9T
  • Story Text: Five Asian elephants, a new addition to Sydney's zoo, received a Buddhist blessing on Friday (December 15) in front of approximately one hundred guests.
    Zoo keepers said special blessings are for the elephant's breeding success.
    The elephants will be at the centre of a new Wild Asia exhibition in the zoo.
    "We have no doubt of that, there have been over 400 young elephants born in zoos around the world, and we are very excited. We have already started the breeding programme, so we're very convinced that there will be a very wonderful outcome for this species," said Guy Cooper, the director and the CEO of the zoo, when asked about the initial controversy about the step of bringing elephants from Thailand.
    Tarango zoo says in it's website that the elephants have come from work camps in Thailand where they had become unemployed due to the cessation of logging.
    The elephants were brought into a custom-built veterinary and quarantine centre in September 2004.
    Their keepers and mahouts all moved into adjacent accommodation, living in the remote Thai province of Kanchanaburi.
    The expected period of quarantine was to be three months in Thailand and then a further three months in the Cocos Keeling islands before coming to Australia in March 2005.
    But a number of animal activists in Australia opposed the program and started a court challenge that went for many months.
    The elephants and their dedicated keepers stayed on in Thailand.
    The court case found that the zoos' elephant program was for the benefit of elephant conservation and that the zoo facilities had been built to ensure the elephants had a good home that provided for their needs.
    In June 2006 - over a year later than planned - zoo staff prepared to undertake the massive task of transporting the elephants to Cocos Keeling Islands for their last three months of quarantine.
    Asian Elephants are endangered with as few as 34,000 remaining in the world across 13 countries, according to the Zoo.
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