The #1 source for news about monkeys and apes

[Josh Greenman <joshg1973 AT yahoo.com>]

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/040729/323/ez73g.html

Thursday July 29, 10:54 PM
  
Boycott demands as orangutans put in the ring for Thai boxing bouts
 
BANGKOK (AFP) - An international animal rights group has called on Thailand 
to ban
controversial kickboxing fights between endangered orangutans held daily at a 
Bangkok
wildlife park.

The orangutans, wearing boxing gloves and garish Thai shorts, are put in a 
ring and
encouraged to fight their opponents using fists, knees, elbows and feet.

The operators of the Safari World animal park say the fights -- which start 
with the
Rocky movie theme and include chimpanzees wearing bikinis carrying cards with 
the bout
number -- are choreographed and that no animal is harmed.

But animal rights groups said the apes were being exploited for easy profits 
and they
were destined for a short and miserable existence after their days in the 
ring were over.

"It's outrageous. There's no question of it being justifiable in any sort of 
way," said
Cyril Rosen, a board member of the International Primate Protection League.

"Most young animals are very flexible and they do what they are told, it's 
what happens
to them afterwards. Their eventual fate is an early death," he told AFP.

Rosen said that such treatment of the endangered orangutans could have a 
long-term effect
on the species' survival and called for a tourist boycott of the park.

If orangutans are deprived of their long upbringing, they lose their maternal 
instincts,
which in turn hits their chances of breeding, he said.

"They are doing no good to the animals, no good to the species and making a 
mockery of
the animal," he said.

After watching a fight Wednesday with some 400 Thai primary schoolchildren, 
one spectator
from California said he would not have brought his three children to the show 
if he knew
it was going to be an animal brawl.

"It was all about hitting and violence and as the audience was mostly very 
young children
it was very inappropriate," said the tourist, who gave his name only as Nick.

"It was basically about teaching the animals and the children watching to hit 
one
another," he said.

Not everyone was concerned. The Thai audience cheered enthusiastically as two 
orangutans
named Sum Luck and Num Singh pummeled each other and a young British couple 
described it
as "harmless fun".

"If we were doing a cruel show we do not have to let anyone tell us. We would 
cancel it
ourselves," Safari World managing director Pin Kewkacha told AFP.

"This show has been there for 20 years without anyone complaining about it 
because it is
merely an action show," he added.

But Thai animals rights groups say they have contacted Safari World about the 
orangutan
fights many times in the past.

"We have tried to talk for so many years, to try to stop this but they won't 
stop because
it is good for business and not illegal," said Roger Lohanan from the group, 
Thai
Solidarity for Protection of Animals.

"There is not an animal cruelty law in Thailand covering this sort of thing," 
he added.

Orangutans are native to Indonesia and Malaysia but hunting and loss of 
habitat has seen
their numbers tumble to fewer than 20,000, according to the Orangutan 
Foundation.

The demands are growing for an end to the animal brawling, with Taiwanese 
animal
activists also calling on tourists to boycott the safari park.

Taiwan's Ping Tong Technology University Wild Animal Protection Centre called 
for the
boycott after its director saw the orangutan fights while in Thailand, 
according to the
Bangkok Post.

Indonesia also criticized Safari World and Thailand and is demanding the 
return of at
least 100 allegedly smuggled orangutans discovered during a raid by Thai 
wildlife
officials on the park last year.

The government was set to fast-track DNA testing of the apes to check their 
origin after
stone-walling on previous demands by Indonesia, according to reports.