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Thai
Elephants Bound for Japan as Gift for Baby Princess
BANGKOK,
July 10 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A Thai province will
present two living symbols of the kingdom, a pair of young elephants,
as a gift to Japan’s royal family to honor the birth of Princess
Aiko, officials said Wednesday, July 10.
“The
couple will travel to Japan no later than August, so that they can
adjust to the cooler autumn and winter seasons there,” said a
government official in northeastern Surin province, where the
elephants were born.
According
to the Agence France-Presse (AFP), Princess Aiko, daughter of Crown
Prince Naruhito and Princess Masako, was born on December 1, 2001, but
bureaucratic procedures and efforts to settle on a new home for the
animals have delayed the gift, the official said.
“We
have been working together with Japanese officials for several months
to secure sending these young elephants to Japan as gifts from the
Surin people,” he added.
The
domesticated pachyderms, a male and female aged four and five, will be
kept at Tokyo’s Ueno Zoo. Put together, their names “Uthai” and
“Arthit” are Thai for “Rising Sun”.
The
pair will be given a farewell ceremony held on July 29, though their
departure date has not been finalized, the government official said.
Some
4,200 elephants remain in Thailand, including 2,257 in the wild,
according to the forestry department.
Thailand’s
King Bhumibol Adulyadej gave three elephants to Denmark last November
to replace three that had passed away that year, some 40 years after
they were presented as a gift to King Frederick VI.
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