| Home | News| Living in China| SMS | About us | Contact us|
   
 Language Tips > Picture story
Updated: 2004-08-13 09:55
Thai zoo owner charged over kickboxing orangutans

dance
An orangutan dances on a car during a mock kick-boxing performance. (AFP)
The owner of a private Bangkok zoo has been charged with smuggling orangutans into Thailand to be used for mock Thai boxing bouts to entertain tourists, police said.

Pin Kiewkacha was charged after a police swoop on the Safari World park and faces four years in jail for illegally importing orangutans from Indonesia or Malaysia.

Police found only 69 of the 110 endangered primates kept by the zoo after it was ordered last week to halt controversial orangutan kickboxing fights following an outcry .

Pin could also face charges over 41 missing animals that police believe have been spirited away from the park despite the zoo's claims that they died of pneumonia.

Colonel Vichit Nanthawong, of Thailand's forestry police, said: "He reported himself to police before the arrest warrant was issued thus we have to release him for the moment."

Thailand says it is intent on stamping out the illegal wildlife trade ahead of a Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) conference being held in Bangkok later this year.

The World Wide Fund for Nature has claimed fewer than 30,000 orangutans remain in the world and the animal could become extinct in as little as 20 years if the decline continues.

It said 91 percent of the orangutan population in Borneo and Sumatra islands had disappeared over the past century.

The red-haired apes, close kin to humans, are found only on Borneo, which is shared by Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei, and on the neighbouring Indonesian island of Sumatra.

The World Wide Fund for Nature blamed commercial logging, clearance for oil palm plantations and agriculture, hunting and poaching for the bush meat and pet trades as well as forest fires for the shrinking population.

(Agencies)

 

 

Vocabulary:
 

kickboxing: (跆拳道)

bout: a contest between antagonists; a match (对手间的一次较量;一次比赛)

swoop: to move in a sudden sweep (突然袭击)

outcry: a strong protest or objection (强烈抗议或反对)

spirit away: to carry away rapidly and secretly(偷走,拐走)

intent on: fixed in your purpose (抱定决心)

stamp out: to end or extinguish by forceful means(根除,废止)

poach: to take (fish or game) illegally (非法捕鱼,非法狩猎)

 
Go to Other Sections
Story Tools
 
Copyright by chinadaily.com.cn. All rights reserved

版权声明:未经中国日报网站许可,任何人不得复制本栏目内容。如需转载请与本网站联系。
None of this material may be used for any commercial or public use. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.