Hanako, the longest-living female Thai elephant in Japan, has died at the age of 69 at the Inokashira Park Zoo in Tokyo, the Thai embassy in the Japanese capital reported in its Facebook page on Thursday.
Affectionately called “Grandma Hanako” for her old age in the zoo, arrived in Tokyo in 1949 at the age of two. It was the first elephant to arrive in Japan after the end of the Second World War in 1945.
The Thai embassy said that Hanako was regarded as a goodwill ambassador from Thailand and a healing medicine for Japanese children after the war.
Early this year however, Hanako became a headline news in Japan when both Thai and Japanese animal rights protection activists launched a campaign to have the ageing elephant moved out of Inokashira Park Zoo in Tokyo to another zoo where there are other elephants.
Because of her old age and travelling might be dangerous to her health, Hanako was kept in the zoo in Tokyo until her death.
The only elephant in the zoo since 1949, Hanako was ironically called the most lonely elephant in the world.
