Arthur Greene
A woman in Thailand was woken up in the middle of the night by the sound of pots and pans flinging around her kitchen.
But when Ratchadawan Puengprasoppo ventured downstairs, she didn’t find burglars as she might have been expecting, and instead discovered a completely different kind of visitor.
A hungry elephant had stuck his head through her wall, and was rummaging around for food!
The elephant, named Boonchuay, was using his trunk to search for snacks, but was knocking over pots and kitchen drawers in the process.
Ratchadawan, feeling helpless, could do nothing but get out her mobile phone and film the incident, while Boonchuay chewed his way through a plastic bag.
Boonchuay, who lives in Kaeng Krachan national park, is in fact a regular visitor to the neighbouring village of Chalermkiatpattana, and is well known to the locals.
“They come to visit quite often. They always come when there is the local market because they can smell food,” Itthipon Thaimonkol, the park’s superintendent, told the Guardian.
Dr Joshua Plotnik, who studies the elephant population in the Salakpra Wildlife Sanctuary in Kanchanaburi, western Thailand, told the publication that the video highlights a problem of elephants coming into contact with local settlements.
“In the villages in which I work in Thailand, elephants enter farmers’ crop fields almost nightly. This is a really difficult issue for both the farmers and the elephants,” he said.
He said the elephants come in search of sugarcane and corn, and that the locals are mostly sympathetic towards the peaceful mammals.
“They are frustrated that this is happening, and really want to find solutions to stop it, but they don’t usually blame the elephants,” he said.
Video source: Youtube
