Thailand's national symbol, the elephant, may face a new threat of extinction: being poached not just for their tusks, but for their meat. Two wild elephants were found slaughtered last month in a national park in western Thailand, alerting authorities to the new practice of consuming elephant meat. “The poachers took away the elephants' reproductive organs and trunks ... for human consumption,” Damrong Phidet, director general of Thailand's wildlife agency, told The Associated Press. Some meat was to be consumed without cooking, like “elephant sashimi,” he said. Damrong said the elephant meat was ordered by restaurants in Phuket, a popular travel destination in the country's south. It wasn't clear if the diners were foreigners. “The situation has come to a crisis point. The longer we allow these cruel acts to happen, the sooner they will become extinct,” Damrong said. Thailand has fewer than 3,000 wild elephants and about 4,000 domesticated elephants, according to the National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation Department. Meanwhile, Thailand Natural Resources and Environment Minister Preecha Rengsomboonsuk has vowed to solve within a year issues related to Thailand's elephants. Preecha planned to build a DNA database on 4,000 or so domesticated elephants in order to stop people taking over identity papers of deceased pachyderms and replacing them with elephants taken in the wild.
