ASIA / PACIFIC
Page 16 n THE ASIAN REPORTER
November 7, 2016
Sri Lanka cracks down on owners
of elephants taken from the wild
By Krishan Francis and
Bharatha Mallawarachi
The Associated Press
C
UNPALATABLE NAME. A worker packs a Pretzel Dog at Auntie
Anne’s at a shopping mall in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Hot dogs, or at
least the name, will soon be off the menu for a U.S. fast-food chain selling
the popular snack in Malaysia. The chain, Auntie Anne’s, has been told
by Islamic authorities that its popular Pretzel Dog, which contains no dog
meat, has to be renamed because it is confusing to Muslim consumers.
(AP Photo/Vincent Thian)
U.S. fast-food chain in Malaysia
told to change hot dog name
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Hot dogs, or at
least the name, will soon be off the menu for a U.S.
fast-food chain selling the popular snack in Malaysia.
The chain, Auntie Anne’s, has been told by Islamic
authorities that its popular Pretzel Dog, which contains
no dog meat, has to be renamed as it is confusing for
Muslim consumers.
The Malaysian Islamic Development Department has
told the U.S. company to banish the word “dog” from its
menu and suggested that the frankfurter wrapped in a
pretzel be called Pretzel Sausage as part of conditions to
obtain halal certification based on Islamic dietary laws.
Dogs are deemed unclean in Islam.
“It is more appropriate to use the name Pretzel
Sausage,” the department’s halal director, Sirajuddin
Suhaimee, told local media.
The move is not surprising in mainly Muslim Malaysia,
where conservative attitudes have been on the rise. A
wide range of products have been certified halal, from
mineral water to a newly launched internet browser and
household products to appeal to Muslims, who make up
about 60 percent of the country’s 30 million people.
Auntie Anne’s said it will comply with the request. Its
halal executive, Farhatul Kamilah, said on her Facebook
page that the chain has proposed several new names and
was waiting for the Islamic department’s approval.
Other food outlets selling hot dogs face similar rules.
U.S. fast-food chain A&W earlier obtained its halal
certification in Malaysia. In return, its famous root beer is
simply called RB on its menu and hot dogs are coneys and
franks, short for frankfurters.
OLOMBO, Sri Lanka — In
Sri Lanka, an elephant in the
backyard has long been a
sign of wealth, privilege, and power.
But these days it may also be a sign
that someone is breaking the law.
Capturing wild elephants has been
banned for decades. Registration
records indicate there should be only
127 elephants in captivity, most of
them older. Yet they are a staple of
the South Asian island nation’s 400
or so yearly processions — traditional
ceremonies honoring a marriage,
calling for peace, or praying for rain
— and in each there are always a few
young elephants clumsily cantering
to keep up.
“In Sri Lanka, people measure the
success of the processions by the
number of elephants,” said the Rev.
Magalkande Sudantha, a Buddhist
monk.
Despite concerns that the animals
may be abused, spectators always
expect a parade of elephants wearing
jangling ornaments, and babies are a
special attraction.
“There is no beauty in processions
without elephants,” said Janaka
Alwis, a 48-year-old city council
employee in Gampaha, north of
Colombo. “People go to watch because
of the elephants, and to count them.”
Aware of the ongoing elephant
racket, authorities have been
cracking down. In the last two years,
the government has confiscated 39
elephants whose owners produced
either false permits or none at all.
Some had paid as much as $200,000
per captured animal when a previous
government was in office, according
to
wildlife
minister
Gamini
Jayawickrama Perera.
Those facing prosecution for
illegally keeping elephants include
one judge and a Buddhist monk.
Police are also considering charges
against people suspected of rounding
BREAKING THE LAW? A Sri Lankan mahout attempts to measure the height of his tamed el-
ephant in the backyard of his home in Baduraliya, a village outside Colombo, Sri Lanka, in this July
5, 2016 file photo. Even as the country cracks down on illegal ownership, the enduring demand for
elephants has the government planning to set up its own pool of captive animals to be hired out to
temples for ceremonies and maintained with budget funds. For Buddhists, who make up 70 percent
of the island’s 20 million population, elephants are believed to have been a servant of the Buddha
and even a previous incarnation of the holy man himself. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena, File)
percent of the island’s 20 million
up wild elephants for profit.
The practice of taming wild population, elephants are believed to
elephants includes starving, beating, have been servants of the Buddha
and scaring them into submission, and even a previous incarnation of
while keeping them chained up at all the holy man himself. Sinhalese
times, conservationists say.
kings rode elephants into battle. And
“Taming a wild elephant is an every year, colorfully decorated
extremely cruel experience for the tuskers carry an ornate box contain-
animal,” said Prithviraj Fernando, ing a replica of one of the Buddha’s
who runs the Center for Conservation teeth.
and Research in Sri Lanka. “Whether
“The elephants carrying sacred
it’s a temple or a private person, relics are very fortunate. Even we
that’s how it is done.”
don’t have that opportunity,” said
The Sri Lankan elephant is one of housewife Kanthi Sriyalatha, 53. She
three subspecies of Asian elephant said the sight of the animals is also a
and is found only on the teardrop- thrill. “Children wait in anticipation
shaped Indian Ocean island. In the to watch processions because they
19th century, there were believed to want to see the elephants.”
be up to 14,000. That number fell to
Conservationists said that, given
fewer than 3,000 before hunting and the importance given to using
capture were banned. But while the elephants in religious ceremonies,
population has grown since then to the government should be stepping in
nearly 6,000, according to the island’s to manage their care while ensuring
first official elephant census in 2011, no more are captured in the wild.
they are still considered endangered
“We need to impose some restric-
and under threat from habitat loss tions on ourselves. There are about
and degradation. They are confined 30,000 Buddhist temples,” Fernando
to small, isolated pockets of jungle said. “If every temple wants to have a
and pasture in the north and the east. procession with an elephant, it is not
Continued on page 13
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