KENYA'S decision to ship 175 wild animals to a Thai safari park where the restaurant will feature a menu of giraffe, zebra and crocodile has provoked condemnation.

The zoo is to open in January in Chiang Mai, a northern Thai city popular with tourists.

One of the five restaurants at the Chiang Mai Night Safari will feature zebra and giraffe from Kenya, crocodile from Thai farms and locally harvested dog and insects.

Conservationists in Africa and Thailand criticised the agreement.

"There is no justification for these animals being captured from their life in the wild and sent to an amusement park," said Dipesh Pabari, a spokesman in Nairobi for the World Society for the Protection of Animals.

Wildlife lobby groups in Thailand, which conservationists say has a poor record of caring for captive animals, agreed. "The idea will set the country's image back a century, because nowadays zoos aim to educate and conserve," said Surapol Duangkae, the secretary of Wildlife Fund Thailand.

Thailand's Environment Minister, Plodprasop Suraswadi, said: "I am not afraid of criticism as we have done everything legally."

There are no endangered animals on the list agreed between Kenya and Thailand. But some, including the lesser flamingo, crowned crane and the serval, appear in the convention on international trade in endangered species. Although they are not necessarily threatened with extinction, this may happen unless trade is strictly regulated.

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