Wild elephant stomps around pensioner's home in Thailand
Published date: Fri, 04 Oct 2024 11:59:38 +0700
This is the terrifying moment a wild elephant lurked outside a pensioner's home in Thailand.
The jumbo emerged from a forest and trudged toward the house of Jaroon Kongkaew, 70, in Prachinburi province at around 1 am on September 27.
CCTV footage shows the creature walking around the wire fence in the residential area surrounded by dense trees. It later shuffled back into the forest.
Jaroon said it was the first time she had a close encounter with an elephant in her years of living in the neighbourhood.
She said: 'I saw the elephant walking around the house of a relative who lived across the street. I shouted to warn them to stay inside the house, but the elephant started walking towards me instead. It used its trunk to reach into the iron grilles of the gate where I happened to be standing.
'It wouldn't leave so I crunched a plastic bottle to scare it away. Then I called my son to tell him to come and keep me company because I was scared.'
Jaroon's son Adun Charoensin, 45, said he was driving his motorcycle to his mother's house when the elephant suddenly charged at him.
He added: 'The elephant must have seen the light and heard my motorcycle, so it ran towards me. I quickly abandoned the motorcycle and ran to my sister's house near the street.'
Village council chief Prasit Jendong, 55, said elephants were venturing out of the Khao Yai National Park to search for food in recent weeks, leaving destroyed farmland and ruined crops in their wake.
He said: 'They usually only at the edge of the forest, but this is the first time one entered a residential area. This elephant was very aggressive and even chased a villager. We have warned the locals to be vigilant. We also called forest officials to come and inspect.'
As of 2023, there are an estimated 3,084-3,500 wild elephants in Thailand. The population has been increasing in recent years, but it is still a fraction of the estimated 300,000 wild elephants that lived in Thailand at the beginning of the 20th century. The main threats to wild elephants in Thailand are habitat loss and fragmentation, poaching, and conflict with humans.