OPINION

More circus than zoo

Mr Suga in his July 4 letter, "Better zoo care," seems to have an archaic concept of what zoos are/do and how that relates to zoos in Thailand.

Modern zoos regard the display of animals as secondary to other purposes such as research into wildlife and conservation -- edu-tainment is seldom the aim any more. It is to better understand the animals in their charge.

Sadly this does not seem to apply to any zoos in Thailand, in fact they mostly have more in common with a 19th century circus than a responsible zoo.

I would also suggest that it would be extremely hard to find any zoo in Thailand that fits Mr Suga's criteria.

The sad reality is such that lack of legislation and even less enforcement coupled with gross ignorance of animal welfare and conservation principles have created a situation where animal cruelty in Thailand is the norm rather than the exception.

Thailand has legislation that is meant to cover licensing of zoos and keeping of wild animals -- but you wouldn't know it for the enforcement that has gone on since 1992 when the first act was introduced

The result is there are thousands of animals in Thailand kept in unfit circumstances that need to be dealt with -- simply closing all these establishments is not practical, but to come into line with international thinking on the matter Thailand must do something.

As was suggested with the Tiger Temple, the most effective way is probably "regime change" -- these establishments need to be taken out of the hands of operators that are found to be below standard and then the long (expensive) process of dealing with the animals can begin.

Re: "Stickering it to the man," (BP, July 3)

With the expansion of 3G/4G connectivity, the use of social media and mobile apps has spread like wildfire. As a result stickers, emoticons, symbols, text faces and dongers are polluting human communication and reducing real interaction. Young people are now engulfed by this wildfire, not knowing they will be the ultimate victims of this new digital catastrophe. Now mobile phones equipped with apps such as Line, WhatsApp, Messenger, Google Hangout and many others have become tools for instant communication.

TV was once dubbed an "idiot box" producing a whole generation of couch potatoes and now mobile phones infested with stickers, selfies and symbols are turning people into walking zombies, waiting to crash into their own virtual world.

It is quite evident the stickers and emoticons are creating a new "look down" generation for whom the ground below and the sky above does not exist.

According to your July 4 report "Regime rolls out 'peace centres,'" red-shirt leader Korkaew Pikulthong says "the people who tend to cheat are those in power". How nice of him to admit it.

Maybe we can now investigate the appalling corruption of the rice pledging scheme with his blessing.

With respect to Thailand, "Don't leave road safety stuck on autopilot" (BP, July 3) is undoubtedly wrong.

I am convinced that if it were mandatory for all cars, buses and trucks in Thailand to be driven by computers, road deaths would be reduced by a factor of 10.

So far, based on minimal statistical data, I will stick to my opinion based on road death statistics of computer-driven cars, until the evidence proves otherwise.

I would say that in this country, many vehicles are already "driverless", but neither controlled by computers, or road law enforcement.