Thai police investigate deaths of 41 orangutans in theme park scandal

August 8, 2004

By Jan McGirk in Bangkok

08 August 2004

The scandal over apes being trained to perform kickboxing bouts for

tourists at a suburban Thailand theme park widened yesterday.Just days

after police ordered the shows to stop and began investigating whether

up to 110 orangutans were acquired via an Indonesian racket, some apes

have disappeared.Police had ordered DNA tests on the primates to

determine their provenance.

But the park's owners claim that 41 of the endangered great apes, each

worth £6,600 on the black market, died of natural causes, and that all

the carcasses were destroyed. " It's really suspicious, " said Major

General Sawek Pinsinchai, chief of Thai Forestry Police.

The park's manager, Pin Kewkacha, refused to be interviewed by The

Independent on Sunday. He told the Bangkok Post that his large

orangutan troop arose through a breeding programme. Yet no adult

orangutans were found at Safari World, and females normally can

reproduce only once every eight years after they reach maturity.

Thai police have made several raids on Safari World, where, since

1988, pairs of juvenile orangutans have been clad in satin shorts and

boxing gloves and made to spar for tourists. So far, no trafficking

case has reached court.Last autumn, after officials seized the frozen

corpse of a baby orangutan from a trader, Luethai Tiewchareon, the

park owners faced charges of keeping protected species without permits.

Police went to confiscate the orangutans 11 days ago, tipped off about

possible smuggled apes.One Safari World worker told reporters that the

41 dead apes had diarrhoea and breathing problems in the spring. " We

had to burn them to prevent spread of the disease. "

The International Primate Protection League said Mr Pin might try to

sell apes to Chinese zoos, listing them " captive born " . It knew of six

baby orangutans that were brought to Thailand on a fishing boat from

Indonesia, bypassing customs. Poachers had killed the babies' mothers.

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