One of last week's non-Covid 19 news was about a DLTV (Distance Learning Television) class for kindergarten students, whose teacher taught them the names of native animals.
When it came to the national animal, she showed a picture of an African instead of a Thai elephant. That became a social media issue, which put the spotlight on the pachyderm.
The public relations of the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation posted on Facebook the characteristics of the Thai elephant, with its scientific name Elephas maximus indicus is actually a subspecies of an Asian elephant from India.
There are many physical characteristics that differentiate the Asian from the African species. The most recognisable is the Asian elephant's smaller and rounded ears compared to the African species' large fan-shaped ears.
Nevertheless, the world's largest land mammals in both Asia and Africa face numerous threats, such as habitat loss, poaching, human-elephant conflict and mistreatment.
Saving the magnificent creature is emphasised on the occasion of World Elephant Day, which annually falls on Aug 12.
From the World Elephant Day website, the number of elephants have dropped by 62% over the last decade, and they could be mostly extinct by the end of the next decade.
World Elephant Day was co-founded by Canadian filmmaker Patricia Sims and the Elephant Reintroduction Foundation, a royal initiative of Her Majesty Queen Sirikit The Queen Mother.
The reintroduction of captive elephants into the wild began in the late 1990s. The foundation also works on restoring the natural forest habitat for the long-term survival of elephants in Thailand, and educating others about the endangered Asian elephant.
Sims and co-filmmaker Michael Clark received the 2012 Humanitarian Award for Return To The Forest, which portrays the plight of elephants in Thailand and the mission of the Elephant Reintroduction Foundation, to save the animal from abuse, exploitation, and extinction.
Narrated by Canadian actor and elephant conservation advocate William Shatner, the documentary was released on the first World Elephant Day on Aug 12, 2012.
It raised awareness of the declining population in Thailand, estimating that there were only 4,000 wild and captive elephants left compared to the over 100,000 that roamed the country at the beginning of the last century.
Historically, Thai elephants were used in warfare to defend the Kingdom, as depicted in the award-winning 3D animated feature film Khan Kluay.
The gentle giants were relentlessly employed in the logging industry, which devastatingly destroyed their natural habitat.
Thai elephants also became a tourist attraction, often abused to do things that are not in their nature.
The creature's natural role was a forester, who worked on maintaining the Asian tropical jungles and ecosystems for 20 million years. One of their jobs was to disperse seeds that grow into new trees for a lush forest that plays a key role in biodiversity, climate stability and flood management.
Due to deforestation, many elephants became homeless, with some ending up wandering the city.
Sims and Clark documented the life of Nong Mai and her mahout, who earned a living by illegally begging on the streets of Bangkok, in the follow-up feature documentary When Elephants Were Young released on World Elephant Day 2016.
Approaching the 10th World Elephant Day this Thursday, events across the globe will highlight the importance of conservation and call-to-action to help protect the endangered species.
Listed on the World Elephant Day website, the actions include spreading the word on social media or starting a conservation with the people you meet about the plight of elephants.
Supporting organisations that work on stopping illegal poaching and trade of elephant ivory, protecting wild elephant habitats, or caring for domesticated elephants in natural sanctuaries are some of the other ways we can help save the poor pachyderm.
The ongoing pandemic has also impacted Thailand's captive elephants, particularly those previously in the tourism industry.
More than ever, the national animal needs our support, and various organisations, such as the Thai Elephant Alliance Association, Save Elephant Foundation, and Raks Thai Foundation, have launched campaigns to help elephants survive the Covid 19 crisis.
Kanokporn Chanasongkram is a feature writer for Life section of the Bangkok Post.
