The repeated entrance into village areas including occupied buildings in the Pala U area by two rogue wild elephants known as ‘Duan’ and ‘Bunmi’ is distressing local villagers who are seeking a solution to the problem.
In the most recent encounter a storage room was destroyed much to the distress of Mrs Thanita who was sleeping in the adjoining home.
She said she awoke to loud noises around 2 AM and found a large elephant had broken the side wall of a storage room with galvanised iron walls knocked down and a broken wooden pole had led to the collapse of the roof.
In fear he shouted and called to the neighbours for help. The elephant had found rambutan and watermelon, with the storage area also a place to store corn, salt, sugar and many other belongings. The elephant remained in the location for an hour before moving on and walking down the road.
This has been the fourth recent encounter in the village with the damage to property increasing. Mrs Thanita commented that last time the wild elephants had destroyed many crates of beer.
Villagers want to find an answer to the problem and help them to remedy the damage. They say that on previous occasions officials have come and taken photos but nothing had changed.
Kaeng Krachan National Park officials and other agencies that work together say that they will need to adjust elephant surveillance times to later at night as this is when the wild elephants are walking into the village
