PHUKET: A Thai short story writer once put these words into the mouth of a fictional character at an imaginary Thai tourist destination: ""Ma says, 'Pussy and elephants, that's all these people want.'''

Ma would probably know. While the former's capacity to attract visitors to Phuket currently appears to be in dispute, nobody disagrees about the pulling power of the pachyderms on Phuket.

There was a recent sad death in the Phuket elephant family, but the other 188 have just passed a thorough health test with flying colors.

Further north in Phang Nga, though, environmentalists are concerned about the effect that hilltop elephant treks are having in polluting streams near their sources. On Phuket, the legitimacy of at least one trekking track is being called into question.

Are elephants popular with Phuket and Phang Nga tourists? Of course. Most people try a ride at least once, and young elephants are especially popular at resorts and restaurants, bringing smiles to faces.

Vet Dr Jirayu Niranwiroj of the Phuket Provincial Livestock Office is Phuket's elephant doctor. Sadly, he recently lost one big patient.

''It was a female aged between 40 and 50 years old, from a trekking centre in Rawai,'' he said today. ''We discovered she was sick - the owner thought she might be pregnant - but she lost about 20 litres of blood.

''We had to take emergency action, so she was trucked from Phuket to the specialist elephant centre at Nakkorn Prathom.

''About 20 doctors and nurses performed an emergency operation on her abdomen, but we lost her. We don't lose many on Phuket.''

Just last week, a group of elephant experts came to Phuket to review the health of all Phuket ''heffalumps.''

''All of them have microchips, and all are in good health,'' Dr Jirayu said. There is some concern, though, about at least one of the trekking tracks being used for the elephants.

At a meeting in Provincial Hall, Phuket City, last week officials were told that sorporkor title deed land - meant to be just for agriculture - is being used for an elephant-trekking business.

Even more concern is being expressed over an ATV track in Surin, where there's also a snake show. Locals asked for greater control over land above the 80-metre height limit that's supposed to be only for agriculture.

North of Phuket in Phang Nga, where many tourists go elephant-trekking through genuine jungle, Dr Wirut Treerasutud is in the process of identifying as many as 250 elephants. About 100 work in trekking, and the others are working animals in timber camps and rubber plantations.

There are 30 camps in Phang Nga and 19 on Phuket, including some in five-star resorts, with 31 elephants at the FantaSea camp in Kamala.

Environment specialist Saman Satae says that in Phang Nga, most of the trekking is done near the sources of creeks and rivers, and elephant waste is causing pollution in water downstream.

The problem adds considerable heft to the constant issue of tourism and its effect on nature. In a world where travel is increasingly popular, more and more people involuntarily subscribe to the motto: ''Been there, dung that.''