The Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation wants to ban individuals owning lions following the viral video of a young lion in a car driven by a foreigner along a Pattaya street.
The DNP director-general said on Wednesday that the Bentley in the video was registered in Phuket to a "Ms Atcharaporn". The driver was a dark-skinned, bald foreign man, not a woman.
The Bentley was leased from a Phuket company, the DNP chief said.
Examination of the microchip implanted in the young lion in the car showed the animal was registered to a woman in Ratchaburi. An application had been filed to transfer ownership to an address in Chon Buri, but the process was not yet complete.
Residents of Phra Tamnak Soi 5 in Pattaya, where the video was taken, said they often saw the foreigner driving the Bentley with a lion in the back seat.
The DNP chief said the driver was an Indian national and a friend of Ms Sawangjit.
He said the transfer of ownership of the lion for display in a public area, not in a safe and secure place, contravened DNP regulations. This offence carried a maxumim penalty of six months in prison and/or fine of 50,000 baht.
A total of 153 lions were registered to 24 owners in Thailand, individuals and private zoos.
In Chon Buri province, four Thai individuals and one zoo had registered possession of 15 lions, he said.
The lion in the Pattaya video was 5-6 months old. Animals of this kind reportedly cost about about 500,000 baht each. They were popular with Thais and foreigners in the eastern province.
