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Elephants Don't Understand Swedish

Posted on: Friday, 18 July 2003, 06:00 CDT

When the Swedish royal couple visited Thailand earlier this year, they were presented with two elephants as a gift from the king of Thailand. But the giant mammals don't understand Swedish, so two zookeepers are traveling to Thailand to learn Thai.

"The elephants must be able to understand commands in the languages they've been raised with, so that we don't have to teach them Swedish," Magnus Nilsson, chief executive of Sweden's Kolmaarden safari park, told The Associated Press on Friday.

In Thailand, the two zookeepers will also attend a special training camp for elephant keepers.

Thailand's culture minister Chakrarot Chitrabong earlier this week visited the park, 150 kilometers (93 miles) south of Stockholm, to make sure the elephants will get a good home when they arrive in Sweden in late October.

"Here the elephants will live as good as we do. Kolmaarden is one of the best zoological parks I have visited," the minister was quoted as telling the local newspaper Folkbladet.

For Kolmaarden, which does not have elephants any more, the gift is especially welcome. The park was forced to destroy all five of its elephants, from last year through this spring, after they were infected with tuberculosis. Swedish law requires that any animal infected with tuberculosis be destroyed because the disease is contagious between humans and animals.

Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej presented King Carl Gustaf and Queen Silvia with the two elephants during a five-day state visit to Thailand in February.

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